REPETITIONS 

SELECTIONS IN PROSE AND VERSE 




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REPETITIONS 



SHORT SELECTIONS IN PROSE AND VERSE 
CHOSEN FOR DECLAMATION 



TOGETHER WITH THE ELEMENTS OF ELOCUTION 



By 
JAMES P. WEBBER, M. A. 

Instructor in English in The Phillips Exeter Academy 



Exeter, New Hampshire 
1916 






Copyright, igi6 
By James P. Webber 



J 1 ? 

FEB'26 1916 

©CI.A420925 



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PREFACE 



In the preparation of this book the aim has been to present: 
(i) More brief selections for declamation than have appeared in 
any other collection with which the compiler is acquainted. 

(2) Without entire neglect of old favourites, a considerable num- 
ber of recent compositions. 

(3) Among selections from the drama, several dialogues for two 
characters, with parts of approximately the same number of lines, 
to be performed by two pupils. 

(4) Some suggestions for young declaimers regarding the elements 
of elocution. 

The compiler would acknowledge his indebtedness for helpful sug- 
gestions to Principal Lewis Perry, Professor James A. Tufts, Pro- 
fessor John C. Kirtland, and Mr. George B. Rogers, of The Phillips 
Exeter Academy; and any pupil of F. F. Mackay, Esq., may find 
in the supplementary essay the latter's influence. 

Thanks are due also to the following authors and publishers, whose 
permissions to reprint from their works have made the collection 
possible : — 

James Lane Allen for an extract from The Choir Invisible; John 
Bennett, Esq., for the two extracts from Master Skylark; the Rev- 
erend Samuel Bickersteth for his father's poem Give Us Men; the 
Honorable William Jennings Bryan for the extracts An Ideal Republic 
and On Immortality; Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, President of 
Columbia University, for the extract A Great War and Its Lessons; 
Professor William Herbert Carruth for his poem Each in His Own 
Tongue; the Honorable Chauncey M. Depew for the extract The 
Army of the Potomac; Dr. John H. Finley'for his poem A Birthnight 
Candle and the extract Truth in Speech; Russell B. Harrison for per- 
mission to reprint an extract from Our Country, an address by his 
father, the late Benjamin Harrison; the late Elbert Hubbard for 
two extracts from A Message to Garcia; Professor John A. Lomax of 
the University of Texas for James Barton Adams's poem The Cow- 



boy's Life; the executor of the estate of the late Professor William 
James for the extract Spinning Fates; the Honorable Henry Cabot 
Lodge for the extract Webster in the Dartmouth College Case; Percy 
MacKaye, Esq., for the extracts Chaucer's Farewell, The Centenary of 
the Battle of Plattsburg, and The Victor; Edwin Markham, Esq., for 
Lincoln, the Man of the People, and The Man with the Hoe; Leland 
Powers, Esq., for two selections adapted from arrangements from 
David Copperfield published in the Practice Book of the Leland Powers 
School; the Honorable Lemuel E. Quigg for the extract Cuban War- 
fare; the Honorable John M. Thurston for the extracts A Plea for 
Force and The Man Who Wears the Button; Horace Annesley Vachell 
for two extracts from The Hill; Sir Herbert Warren, President of 
Magdalen College, Oxford, for the sonnets Addison's Walk and May- 
Day on Magdalen Tower from By Severn Sea; Professor George E. 
Woodberry for two extracts from his Exeter Ode; the Henry Alte- 
mus Company for the extract from President Cleveland's address 
Holiday Observance; Barse and Hopkins for stanzas from The Spell 
of the Yukon by Robert W. Service; The Century Company for con- 
firming the permission of Mr. Bennett to use extracts from Master 
Skylark, and for the two extracts The American Boy and A Boy's 
Work from the essay The American Boy from The Strenuous Life by 
Theodore Roosevelt; The Century Magazine for Dr. Finley's poem 
A Birthnight Candle; Thomas Y. Crowell Company for the extract 
from President Cleveland's address The Self-Made Man; Dodd, 
Mead, and Company for the extract A Scholar's Funeral from Beside 
the Bonnie Brier Bush by Ian Maclaren; C. P. Farrell for A Vision 
of War and Napoleon abbreviated from Prose-Poems and Selections 
from the Writings af_ Robert Ingersoll; Harper and Brothers for 
various extracts from the Orations and Addresses of George William 
Curtis, two extracts from Louis N. Parker's translation of Edmond 
Rostand's play L'Aiglon, and the extract from Senator Lodge's The 
War with Spain; Henry Holt and Company for the extract from 
Professor James's Talks to Teachers on Psychology; Mr. John' Lane 
(London) for two sonnets from Echoes from Theocritus and Other 
Sonnets by Edward C. Lefroy; the John Lane Company for the 
poems After Construing by Arthur Christopher Benson, Drake's 
Drum, He Fell Among Thieves, and Vitai Lampada from Admirals 



All by Henry Newbolt, and Clifton Chapel from The Island Race by 
the same author; Little, Brown, and Company for the extracts 
from the Speeches of Daniel Webster; Longmans, Green, and Com- 
pany for two extracts from Dr. Dix's The Sacramental System; Lothrop, 
Lee, and Shepard Company for the extract Toussaint L'Ouver- 
ture from Wendell Phillips's Speeches, Lectures, and Letters; and for 
stanzas from The House by the Side of the Road from Dreams in Home- 
spun by Sam Walter Foss ; Mr. Thomas Bird Mosher for In Hospital 
by William E. Henley; The Macmillan Company for the selections 
from Browning, Arnold, Stephen Phillips, Tennyson, Mabie, Wood- 
berry, and Zangwill; The North American Review for an extract from 
A Potential Substitute for War by Percy MacKaye, which appeared in 
the Review for May, 191 5; G. P. Putnam's Sons for extract from Rip 
Van Winkle; Fleming H. Revell Company for two extracts from 
Great Books as Life Teachers by Newell D wight Hillis; Charles Scrib- 
ner's Sons for two extracts from The English Admirals from Virgini- 
bus Puerisque, an extract from The Master of Ballantrae, for verses 
from Christmas at Sea from Poems and Ballads — all by Robert Louis 
Stevenson, and for an extract from The Delectable Dutchy by A. 
Quiller- Couch; the Frederick A. Stokes Company for extracts from 
Alfred Noyes's Tales of the Mermaid Tavern, Drake, The Wine Press, 
and The Barrel-Organ (the latter to be found in his Collected Poems). 
The selections from Longfellow, C. Hanford Henderson, Holmes, 
F. Hopkinson Smith, Longfellow, Sill, Webster's translation of Dau- 
det's Death of the Dauphin and the extract from Senator Lodge's 
Daniel Webster are used by permission of, and by special arrange- 
ment with Houghton Mifflin Company. The extract from Out to 
Old Aunt Mary's is from the Biographical Edition of the Complete 
Works of James Whitcomb Riley, copyright 1913. It is used by spec- 
ial permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company. The 
poem // by Rudyard Kipling is used by special arrangement with 
Doubleday, Page, and Company, and with A. P. Watt and Sons, 
London. 



CONTENTS 



REPETITIONS 

YOUTH AND SCHOOL DAYS 

PAGE 

The American Boy. Theodore Roosevelt i 

Exeter in Retrospect. George E. Woodberry 2 

If. Rudyard Kipling 3 

Squire Brown's Advice to Tom. Thomas Hughes 4 

The Exonian Brotherhood. George E. Woodberry 5 

Spinning Fates. William James 6 

A Scholar's Funeral. Ian Maclaren 7 

Arnold of Rugby. Thomas Hughes 8 

Rugby Chapel. Matthew Arnold 9 

Morituri Salutamus. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 10 

The Scholar Gypsy. Joseph Glanvill n 

The Boys. Oliver Wendell Holmes 12 

Clifton Chapel. Henry Newbolt 13 

The Finish of the Boat Race. Thomas Hughes 14 

Give Us Men. Edward Henry Bicker steth 15 

The Death of Colonel Newcome. William Makepeace Thackeray 16 

The College Revisited. Alfred, Lord Tennyson 17 

To an Athlete Dying Young. A. E. Housman 18 

A Boy's Work. Theodore Roosevelt 19 

John Verney Enters Harrow. Horace Annesley Vachell 20 

In Harrow Chapel. Horace Annesley Vachell 21 

Skating. William Wordsworth 22 

Vitai Lampada. Henry Newbolt 23 

Oxford in Vacation. Charles Lamb 24 

Master Skylark's First Appearance. John Bennett 25 

Addison's Walk. T. Herbert Warren 26 

May-Day on Magdalen Tower. T. Herbert Warren 27 

After Construing. Arthur Christopher Benson 28 

A Message to Garcia. Elbert Hubbard 29 

On Entering Cambridge. William Wordsworth 30 

An Undergraduate at St. John's. William Wordsworth 31 

The Race of Life. Oliver Wendell Holmes 32 

Out to Old Aunt Mary's. James Whitcomb Riley 33 

When I Was Twenty-One. William Makepeace Thackeray 34 



X 

PAGE 

Little Marlowe at Canterbury. Alfred Noyes 35 

A Cricket Bowler. Edward Cracroft Lefroy 36 

A Football Player. Edward Cracroft Lefroy 37 

Opportunity. Edward Rowland Sill 38 

Rules for the Game of Life. Edward Rowland Sill 39 

Christmas at Sea. Robert Louis Stevenson 40 

DEEDS AND CHARACTER 

John, Most Ruthless of the Angevins. John Richard Green 41 

The English Admirals. Robert Louis Stevenson 42 

Sir Francis Drake. Alfred Noyes 43 

Drake's Drum. Henry Newbolt 44 

The Death of Sir Richard Grenville. Alfred, Lord Tennyson 45 

By the Statue of King Charles at Charing Cross. Lionel Johnson .... 46 

Character of Charles I. Thomas Babington Macaulay 47 

Washington's Administration. George William Curtis 48 

The Patriots of Lexington. Theodore Parker 49 

The Minute Man. George William Curtis 50 

The American Sailor. Robert F. Stockton 51 

Toussaint L'Ouverture. Wendell Phillips 52 

Adams and Jefferson. Daniel Webster 53 

Webster in the Dartmouth College Case. Henry Cabot Lodge 54 

Webster at Bunker Hill. Samuel G. Goodrich 55 

Robert Burns. Newell Dwight Hillis 56 

Napoleon. Robert Green Ingersoll 57 

Lincoln, the Man of the People. Edwin Markham 58 

"Punch" on Abraham Lincoln. Tom Taylor 59 

The Man Who Wears the Button. John Mellen Thurston 60 

The Character of Gladstone. Newell Dwight Hillis 61 

The Self-Made Man. Grover Cleveland 62 

The Source of Power. C. Hanford Henderson 63 

The Man Who Is Needed. Elbert Hubbard 64 

NARRATIVE SELECTIONS 

The Storming of the Castle. Walter Scott 65 

When the Players Came to Stratford. John Bennett 66 

May Day in Old London. Alfred Noyes 67 

The Murder of Thomas Becket. /. A. Froude 68 

The Three Troopers. George Walter Thornbury 69 

The Jacobite on Tower Hill. George Walter Thornbury 70 

Breaking the News. William Makepeace Thackeray 71 

Partridge at the Playhouse. Henry Fielding 72 

The Death of the Dauphin. Alphonse Daudet 73 



XI 

PAGE 

The Victor of Marengo. Anonymous 74 

Sidney Carton's Prophecy. Charles Dickens 75 

The Revolutionary Alarm. George Bancroft 76 

The Black Horse and His Rider. George Lippard 77 

The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna. Charles Wolfe 78 

The Duel between the Master and Mr. Henry. Robert Louis Stevenson . . 79 

The English Lark. Charles Reade 80 

How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix. Robert Browning . 81 

The Return of Rip Van Winkle. Washington Irving 82 

The Tea Kettle and the Cricket. Charles Dickens 83 

The Fezziwig Ball. Charles Dickens 84 

Romance. William E. Henley 85 

The Private of the Buffs. Francis H. Doyle 86 

The Battle of Santiago. Henry Cabot Lodge " . . 87 

The Cheerful Locksmith. Charles Dickens . 88 

The Return of the Registrar. Arthur Quiller-Couch 89 

The Victor. Percy MacKaye 90 

FORENSIC AND DIDACTIC 

The Names of Naval Heroes. Robert Louis Stevenson 91 

Stratford-upon-Avon. Hamilton Wright Mabie 92 

Shakespeare's Education. Hamilton Wright Mabie 93 

Reply to Mr. Corry. Henry Grattan 94 

Reply to Walpole. William Pitt 95 

To the White Man. Edward Everett 96 

The Indians. Charles Sprague 97 

MacGregor's Defense. Walter Scott 98 

The American Fisheries. Edmund Burke 99 

Against the War with America. William Pitt 100 

To the Convention of Delegates. Patrick Henry 101 

Paul Revere 's Ride. George William Curtis 102 

Address to His Army. George Washington 103 

Farewell to His Countrymen. George Washington 104 

The Bunker Hill Monument. Daniel Webster 105 

The Survivors of Bunker Hill Daniel Webster 106 

An Appeal in Behalf of Liberty and Union. Daniel Webster 107 

A Rub-a-Dub Agitation. George William Curtis 108 

The Duty of the American Scholar. George William Curtis 109 

Address at the Dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery. Abraham 

Lincoln no 

The Army of the Potomac. Chauncey Mitchell Depew in 

A Vision of War. Robert Green Ingersoll 112 

The New South. Henry W. Grady . 113 



Xll 

PAGE 

A Plea for Force. John Mellen Thurston 114 

Cuban Warfare. Lemuel E. Quigg 115 

Our Country. Benjamin Harrison 116 

Holiday Observance. Grover Cleveland 117 

The Ideal Republic. William Jennings Bryan 118 

On Immortality. William Jennings Bryan 119 

In Praise of Venice. F. Hopkinson Smith 120 

Sun Dials. Charles Lamb 121 

Eulogy on the Dog. George A. Vest 122 

Beside the Glimmerglass. Morgan Dix 123 

The Vera Cruz Dead. Woodrow Wilson 124 

Enlisted Men. Woodrow Wilson 125 

The Cathedral. Morgan Dix 126 

A Great War and Its Lesson. Nicholas Murray Butler 127 

The Dignity of Work. Thomas Carlyle 128 

The Wilderness Road. James Lane Allen 129 

Truth in Speech. John H. Finley 130 

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 

The Barrel-Organ. Alfred Noyes 131 

The House by the Side of the Road. Sam Walter Foss 132 

Each in His Own Tongue. William Hubert Carruth 133 

A Birthnight Candle. John Finley 134 

The Man with the Hoe. Edwin Markham 135 

Ballade of Dead Actors. William E. Henley 136 

The Last Buccaneer. Charles Kingsley 137 

The Lost Leader. Robert Browning 138 

My Lord Tomnoddy. Robert Barnabas Brough 139 

Come Up from the Fields, Father. Walt Whitman 140 

The Returned Maine Battle Flags. Moses Owen 141 

The End of the Play. William Makepeace Thackeray 142 

My Last Duchess. Robert Browning 143 

The Recruit. A. E. Housman 144 

The Cowboy's Life. James Barton Adams 145 

The Blood of Peasants. Alfred Noyes 146 

Whittington's London. Alfred Noyes 147 

The Spell of the Yukon. Robert W. Service 148 

He Fell Among Thieves. Henry Newbolt 149 

The Centenary of the Battle of Plattsburg. Percy MacKaye 150 

DRAMATIC SELECTIONS 

Tamburlaine to the Captive Kings. Christopher Marlowe 151 

The Jew of Malta. Christopher Marlowe 152 



Xlll 

PAGE 

The Seven Ages. William Shakespeare 153 

Arthur's Plea to Hubert. William Shakespeare 154 

Prince Arthur and Hubert. William Shakespeare 155 

Prince Edward and Gloucester. William Shakespeare 156 

Queen Mab. William Shakespeare 157 

Cassius Instigating Brutus. William Shakespeare 158 

Marullus to the Commoners. William Shakespeare 159 

Brutus and Lucius. William Shakespeare 160 

Benedict on Love. William. Shakespeare 161 

Wolsey to Cromwell. William Shakespeare 162 

Henry the Fifth at Harfleur. William Shakespeare 163 

A Fencing Lesson from Captain Boabdil. Ben Jonson 164 

Ralph to the Soldiers. Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher 165 

Young Fashion in Straights. Sir John Vanbrugh 166 

Cato's Soliloquy on Immortality. Joseph Addison 167 

Sir Lucius Instigates Bob Acres. Richard Brinsley Sheridan 168 

Bob Acres as a Duelist. Richard Brinsley Sheridan 169 

The Rehearsal. Richard Brinsley Sheridan 170 

Puff as a Director. Richard Brinsley Sheridan 171 

Charles Surface's Auction of Family Portraits. Richard Brinsley Sheridan . 172 

Hardcastle and His Servants. Oliver Goldsmith 173 

A Fond Father and a Prodigal Son. Thomas Holcroft 174 

News from the Prodigal. Thomas Holcroft 175 

. At the Crooked Billet. J. A. Planche 176 

At the Crooked Billet, Evening. /. A. Planche 177 

Faustus on the Vanity of His Studies. Wilhelm Goethe 178 

Wamba and Cedric. Thomas Dibdin 179 

Moses at the Fair. Tom Taylor ■ 180 

Moses' Return from the Fair. Tom Taylor 181 

The Prophecy. Mary Russell Mitford 182 

Rienzi to the Romans. Mary Russell Mitford 183 

Simon Ingot on Shakespeare. T. W. Robertson 184 

Pecksniff to Flis Daughters. Charles Dickens 185 

John Westlock's Parting with Pecksniff. Charles Dickens 186 

Scrooge and His Nephew. Charles Dickens 187 

A Scene from David Copperfield. Charles Dickens 188 

The Micawbers in a Crisis. Charles Dickens 189 

The Eaglet's Wooden Soldiers. Edmond Rostand 190 

Flambeau, the Veteran. Edmond Rostand 191 

Ulysses on Calypso's Isle. Stephen Phillips 192 

Chaucer's Farewell. Percy MacKaye 193 

The Old Book from the Thatch. William Butler Yeats 194 

The Melting Pot. Israel Zangwill 195 

America. Israel Zangwill 196 



ELEMENTS OF ELOCUTION 

PAGE 

Learning the Piece 199 

Platform Decorum 202 

Breathing 203 

Speaking Clearly 204 

Exercises in Articulation 205 

Pronunciation 207 

Pausing 208 

Where to Look 209 

Making Gestures 210 

Inflections 212 

Exercises in Inflections 213 



REPETITIONS 



"No impromptu ventures, but carved ivories of speech, drawn out of 
the treasury of memory." 

Walter Pater. 



REPETITIONS 



YOUTH AND SCHOOL DAYS 

THE AMERICAN BOY 

Theodore Roosevelt 

WHAT we have a right to expect of the American boy is that 
he shall turn out to be a good American man. The boy can 
best become a good man by being a good boy — not a goody-goody 
boy, but just a plain good boy. I do not mean that he must love 
only the negative virtues; I mean that he must love the positive virtues 
also. "Good," in the largest sense, should include whatever is fine, 
straightforward, clean, brave, and manly. The best boys I know — 
the best men I know — are good at their studies or their business, 
fearless and stalwart, hated and feared by all that is wicked and de- 
praved, incapable of submitting to wrong-doing, and equally incapable 
of being aught but tender to the weak and helpless. 

Of course the effect that a thoroughly manly, thoroughly straight 
and upright boy can have upon the companions of his own age, and 
upon those who are younger, is incalculable. If he is not thoroughly 
manly, then they will not respect him, and his good qualities will 
count for but little; while, of course, if he is mean, cruel, or wicked, 
then his physical strength and force of mind merely make him so much 
the more objectionable a member of society. He cannot do good work 
if he is not strong and does not try with his whole heart and soul to 
count in any contest; and his strength will be a curse to himself and 
to everyone else if he does not have a thorough command over him- 
self and over his own evil passions, and if he does not use his strength 
on the side of decency, justice, and fair dealing. 

In short, in life, as in a football game, the principle to follow is: 
Hit the line hard; don't foul and don't shirk, but hit the line hard! 

From The Strenuous Life. The Century Company. 



EXETER IN RETROSPECT 

George E. Woodberry 

WE turn, and with fond gaze look back 
On scenes that nurse their growing years, 
The triumphs of the field and track, 
The glory of the distant cheers, 
Where they forge fresh strength and daring, 
Schoolboy ensigns proudly wearing 
To the victor-music in their blood; 
In the onset and the shock 
Learn how human forces lock 
To the banded bringing of the common good; 
And the youthful fighters melt in joyful brotherhood. 

Now for us a dearer past remains, 

Which may their manhood, too, recall, 

Higher pleasures, deeper pains, 

That here heaven's grace let fall: 

Binning clefts of opening heaven 

To Paul by old Damascus given; 

The lonely hours, the unshed tears, 

Sacred hopes and holy fears, 

These also to our high youth did belong; 

And the sad majesty of song, 

The tragic load of Homer's age, 

The breathing woe of Virgil's page, 

Swept the young soul that yearns for home 

Where save through death it shall not come. 



From the Exeter Ode in Poems. The Macmillan Company. 



IF 

Rudyapjd Kipling 

IF you can keep your head when all about you 
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; 
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, 

And make allowance for their doubting too : 
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, 

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, 
Or being hated, don't give way to hating, 
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; 

If you can dream — and not make dreams your master; 

If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim; 
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster 

And treat those two imposters just the same : 
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken 

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, 
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, 

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools; 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings 

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, 
And lose, and start again at your beginnings 

And never breathe a word about your loss : 
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 

To serve your turn long after they are gone, 
And so hold on when there is nothing in you 

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, 

Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch, 
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, 

If all men count with you, but none too much : 
If you can fill the unforgiving minute 

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, 
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, 

And — which is more — you'll be a Man, my son! 

From Rewards and Fairies. Doubleday, Page and Company. 



SQUIRE BROWNS ADVICE TO TOM 

Thomas Hughes 

AND now, Tom, my boy," said the Squire, "remember you are 
going at your own request, to be chucked into this great 
school, like a young bear with all your troubles before you,- — earlier 
than we should have sent you perhaps. If schools are like what they 
were in my time, you'll see a great many cruel, blackguard things 
done, and hear a deal of foul, bad talk. But never fear. You tell the 
truth, keep a brave and kind heart, and never listen to or say anything 
you wouldn't have your mother and sister hear, and you'll never feel 
ashamed to come home, or we to see you." 

The Squire's last words deserved to have their effect, for they 
had been the result of much anxious thought. All the way up to 
London he had pondered what he should say to Tom by way of 
parting advice : something that the boy could keep in his head ready 
for use. 

To condense the Squire's meditation, it was somewhat as follows: 
"I won't tell him to read his Bible and love and serve God; if he don't 
do that for his mother's sake and teaching, he won't for mine. Shall 
I go into the sort of temptation he'll meet with? No, I can't do that. 
He won't understand me. Do him more harm than good, ten to one. 
Shall I tell him to mind his work, and say he's sent to school to make 
himself a good scholar? Well, but he isn't sent to school for that — at 
any rate, not for that mainly. I don't care a straw for Greek particles, 
or the digamma; no more does his mother. What is he sent to school 
for? Well, partly because he wanted to go. If he'll only turn out a 
brave, helpful, truth-telling Englishman, and a gentleman, and a 
Christian, that's all I want." 



From Tom Brown at Rugby. 



THE EXONIAN BROTHERHOOD 

George E. Woodberry 

HONOR to the brave, the wise, the good, 
Whose lives in this old school began! 
Our Exonian brotherhood 
Earns gratitude of man. 
Here let bronze and marble trace 
The features of each vanished face. 
Stately portraits, looking down, 
Show Bancroft's smile and Webster's frown, 
Palfrey benign and Everett's grace, 
Cass's craft and Phillips' race, 
With Soule and Abbot's hoary age, 
And all our sons of heritage. 

Here shall they grow, though haughty, high, and wise, 
Familiar with youth's happy eyes. 
They watch his going out and coming in, 
Sink in his mind, and deeply win; 
They meet young thousands face to face 
And from their silent seats they mix with this new race. 
The youngest student heads our farthest hope, 
Our edge and limit of prophetic scope; 
Ah, if, past death, our torch of life still flames, 
Ah, here, if boyhood treasures up our names, 
This is the laurel's greenest growth, found fresh in younger fames. 



From the Exeter Ode in Poems. The Macmillan Company. 



SPINNING FATES 

William James 

WE are spinning our own fates, good or evil, never to be undone. 
Every smallest stroke of virtue or vice leaves its never-so- 
little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses 
himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, "I won't count this 
time!" Well, he may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count 
it; but it is being counted none the less. Down among his nerve-cells 
and fibres the molecules are counting it, registering and storing it up 
to be used against him when the next temptation comes. Nothing 
we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out. 

Of course, this has its good side as well as its bad one. As we be- 
come permanent drunkards by so many separate drinks, so we be- 
come saints in the moral, and authorities and experts in the practical 
and scientific spheres, by so many separate acts and hours of work. 
Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education, 
whatever the line of it may be. If he keep faithfully busy each hour 
of the working day, he may safely leave the final result to itself. He 
can with perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morning to 
find himself one of the competent ones of his generation in whatever 
pursuit he may have singled out. Silently, between all the details of 
his business, the power of judging in all that class of matter will have 
built itself up within him as a possession that will never pass away. 
Young people should know this truth in advance. The ignorance of 
it has probably engendered more discouragement and faint-hearted- 
ness in youths embarking on arduous careers than all other causes put 
together. 



From Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals. 
Henry Holt and Company. 



A SCHOLARS FUNERAL 

Ian Maclaren 

IT was a low-roofed room, fit only for a laboring man. But the choice 
treasures of Greece and Rome lay on the table, and on a shelf 
beside the bed college prizes and medals, while everywhere were the 
roses he loved. His peasant mother stood beside the body of her 
scholar son, and through the window came the bleating of distant 
sheep. 

"Maister Gordon," said Marget, "this is George's Homer, and he 
bade me tell you that he coonted yir freendship ane o' the gifts o' 
God." 

For a brief space Gordon was silent, and, when he spoke, his voice 
sounded strange in that room. 

"Your son was the finest scholar of my time, and a very perfect 
gentleman. He was also my true friend, and I pray God to console 
his mother." And Ludovic Gordon bowed low over Marget's worn 
hand as if she had been a queen. 

Marget lifted Plato. 

"This is the buik George chose for you, Maister Maclean, for he 
aye said to me ye hed been a prophet and shown him mony deep 
things." 

The tears sprang to the Celt's eyes. 

"It wass like him to make all other men better than himself," 
with the soft, sad Highland accent; "and a proud woman you are 
to hef been his mother." 

The third man waited at the window till the scholars left, and 
then I saw he was none of that kind, but one who had been a slave 
of sin and now was free. 

"Andra Chaumers, George wished ye tae hev his Bible, and he 
expecks ye tae keep the tryst." 

"God helping me, I will," said Chalmers, hoarsely; and from the 
garden ascended a voice, "O God, who art a very present help in 
trouble." 

From Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush. Dodd, Mead and Company. 



ARNOLD OF RUGBY 

Thomas Hughes 

AS the hymn after the prayers was being sung, and the chapel was 
getting a little dark, came that great event in his, as in every 
Rugby boy's life of that day — the first sermon from the Doctor. 

And what was it after all which seized and held these three hundred 
boys, dragging them out of themselves, willing or unwilling, for twenty 
minutes, on Sunday afternoons? What was it that moved and held 
us, three hundred reckless, childish boys, who feared the Doctor with 
all our hearts, and very little besides in heaven or earth; who thought 
more of our seats in the School than of the Church of Christ, and put 
the traditions of Rugby and the public opinion of boys in our daily 
life above the laws of God? We couldn't enter into half that we heard; 
but we listened, as all boys in their better moods will listen to a man 
whom we felt to be, with all his heart and soul and strength, striving 
against whatever was mean and unmanly and unrighteous in our little 
world. And so, wearily and little by little, but surely and steadily 
on the whole, was brought home to the young boy, for the first time, 
the meaning of his life: that it was no fool's or sluggard's paradise into 
which he had wandered by chance, but a battlefield ordained from of 
old, where there are no spectators, but the youngest must take his side, 
and the stakes are life and death. And he who roused this conscious- 
ness in them showed them at the same time, by every word he spoke 
in the pulpit, and by his whole daily life, how that battle was to be 
fought, and made them believe first in him, and then in his Master. 



From Tom Brown at Rugby. 



9 
RUGBY CHAPEL 

Matthew Arnold 

COLDLY, sadly descends 
The autumn evening. The fields 
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts 
Of wither'd leaves, and the elms, 
Fade into dimness apace, 
Silent; — hardly a shout 
From a few boys late at their play! 
The lights come out in the street, 
In the school-room windows; — but cold, 
Solemn, unlighted, austere, 
Through the gathering darkness, arise 
The chapel-walls, in whose bound 
Thou, my father! art laid. 

Fifteen years have gone round 
Since thou arosest to tread, 
In the summer morning, the road 
Of death, at a call unforeseen, 
Sudden. For fifteen years, 
We who till then in the shade 
Rested as under the boughs 
Of a mighty oak, have endured 
Sunshine and rain as we might, 
Bare, unshaded, alone, 
Lacking the shelter of thee. 

strong soul, by what shore 
Tarriest thou .now? For that force, 
Surely, has not been left vain! 
Somewhere, surely, afar, 
In the sounding labour-house vast 
Of being, is practised that strength, 
Zealous, beneficent, firm. 



From The Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold. The Macmillan Company. 



10 

MORITURI SALUTAMUS 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

HOW beautiful is youth! how bright it gleams 
With its illusions, aspirations, dreams! 
Book of Beginnings, Story without End, 
Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend! 
All possibilities are in its hands, 
No danger daunts it, and no foe withstands; 
In its sublime audacity of faith, 
"Be thou removed!" it to the mountain saith. 

As ancient Priam at the Scaean gate 

Sat on the waUs of Troy in regal state 

With the old men, too old and weak to fight, 

Chirping like grasshoppers in their delight 

To see the embattled hosts, with spear and shield, 

Of Trojans, and Achaians in the field; 

So from the snowy summits of our years 

We see you in the plain, as each appears, 

And question of you; asking, "Who is he 

That towers above the others? Which may be 

Atreides, Menelaus, Odysseus, 

Ajax the great, or bold Idomeneus?" 

Let him not boast who puts his armor on 
As he who puts it off, the battle done. 
Study yourselves; and most of all note well 
Wherein kind nature meant you to excel. 
Not every blossom ripens into fruit; 
Minerva, the inventress of the flute, 
Flung it aside, when she her face surveyed 
Distorted in a fountain as she played ; 
The unlucky Marsyas found it, and his fate 
Was one to make the bravest hesitate. 
Write on your doors the saying wise and old, 
"Be bold! be bold!" and everywhere, "Be bold!" 

By permission of, and by special arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Company. 



11 

THE SCHOLAR GIPSY 

Joseph Glanvill 

THERE was very lately a lad in the University of Oxford, who 
was by his poverty forced to leave his studies there, and at last 
to join himself to a company of vagabond gipsies. Among these 
extravagant people, by the insinuating subtilty of his carriage, he 
quickly got so much of their love and esteem as that they discovered 
to him their mystery. After he had been a pretty while exercised 
in the trade,, there chanced to ride by a couple of Scholars, who 
quickly spied out their old friend among the gipsies; but by a sign 
he prevented them from owning him before that crew, and taking 
one of them aside privately, desired him, with a friend, to go to an 
inn, not far distance thence, promising there to come to them. 

After their first salutations, his friends enquire how he came to 
join himself with such a cheating, beggarly company. The Scholar, 
having given them an account of the necessity which drove him 
to that kind of life, told them that the people he went with were 
not such imposters as they were taken for; but that they had a tradi- 
tional kind of learning among them, and could do wonders by the 
power of the Imagination, and that himself had learnt much of their 
art, and improved it further than themselves could. And to evince 
the truth of what he told them, he said he'd remove into another 
room, leaving them to discourse together; and upon his return tell 
them the sum of what they had talked of. Which accordingly he 
performed, giving them a full account of what had passed between 
them in his absence. The Scholars being amazed at so unexpected a 
discovery earnestly desired him to unriddle the mystery. In which 
he gave them satisfaction by telling them that there were warrant- 
able ways of heightening the Imagination to that pitch as to bind 
another's; and that when he had compassed the whole secret, some 
parts of which he was yet ingorant of, he intended to leave their 
company, and give the world an account of what he had learned. 



From The Vanity of Dogmatizing, 1660. 



12 

THE BOYS 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 

HAS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys? 
If there has, take him out, without making a noise. 
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite! 
Old time is a liar! We're twenty to-night! 

We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more? 
He's tipsy, — young jackanapes! — show him the door! 
"Gray temples at twenty?" — Yes! white if we please; 
Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze! 

Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake! 
Look close, — you will see not a sign of a flake ! 
We want some new garlands for those we have shed, — 
And these are white roses in place of the red. 

We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told, 
Of talking (in public) as if we were old: — 
That boy we call "Doctor," and this we call "Judge;" 
It's a neat little fiction, — of course it's all fudge. 

Yes, we're boys, — always playing with tongue or with pen, — 
And I sometimes have asked, — Shall we ever be men? 
Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, and gay, 
Till the last dear companion drops smiling away? 

Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray! 
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May! 
And when we have done with our life-lasting toys, 
Dear Father, take care of thy children, The Boys! 



By permission of, and by special arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Company. 



13 
CLIFTON CHAPEL 

Henry Newbolt 

THIS is the Chapel: here, my son, 
Your father thought the thoughts of youth, 
And heard the words that one by one 

The touch of Life has turned to truth. 
Here, in a day that is not far, 

You too may speak with noble ghosts 
Of manhood and the vows of war 
You made before the Lord of Hosts. 

To set the Cause above renown, 

To love the game beyond the prize, 
To honour, while you strike him down, 

The foe that comes with fearless eyes: 
To count the life of battle good, 

And dear the land that gave you birth, 
And dearer yet the brotherhood 

That binds the brave of all the earth. 

My son, the oath is yours: the end 

Is His, Who built the world of strife, 
Who gave His children Pain for friend 

And Death for surest hope of life. 
To-day and here the fight's begun, 

Of the great fellowship you're free; 
Henceforth the School and you are one, 

And what You are, the race shall be. 

God send you fortune: yet be sure, 

Among the lights that gleam and pass, 
You'll live to follow none more pure 

Than that which glows on yonder brass: 
"Qui procul hinc," the legend's writ — 

The frontier-grave is far away — 
"Qui ante diem periit: 

Sed miles, sed pro patria." 

From The Island Race. John Lane Company. 



14 



THE FINISH OF THE BOAT RACE 

Thomas Hughes 

WE must be close to Exeter!" The thought flashes into him, and 
it would seem into the rest of the crew at the same moment. 
For, all at once, the strain seems taken off their arms again. There 
is no more drag. She springs to the stroke as she did at the start; and 
the coxswain's face, which had darkened for a few seconds, lightens up 
again. "You're gaining! you're gaining!" now and then he mutters to 
the captain, who responds with a wink, keeping his breath for other 
matters. Isn't he grand, the captain, as he comes forward like light- 
ning, stroke after stroke, his back fiat, his teeth set, his whole frame 
working from the hips with the regularity of a machine? As the space 
still narrows, the eyes of the fiery little coxswain flash with excite- 
ment. 

The two crowds mingle now, and no mistake; and the shouts 
come all in a heap over the water. "Now, St. Ambrose, six strokes 
more!" "Now, Exeter, you're gaining; pick her up!" "Mind the 
Gut, Exeter!" "Bravo, St. Ambrose!" The water rushes by, still 
eddying from the strokes of the boat ahead. Tom fancies now he can 
hear the voice of their coxswain. In another moment both boats are 
in the Gut, and a storm of shouts reaches them from the crowd. "Well 
steered, well steered, St. Ambrose!" is the cry. Then the coxswain, 
motionless as a statue till now, lifts his right hand and whirls the tassel 
round his head: "Give it her now, boys; six strokes and we are into 
them!" 

And while a mighty sound of shouts, murmurs, and music went up 
into the evening sky, the coxswain shook the tiller-ropes again, the 
captain shouted, "Now, then, pick her up!" and the St. Ambrose boat 
shot up between the swarming banks at racing pace to her landing- 
place, the lion of the evening. 



From Tom Brown at Oxford. 



15 
GIVE US MEN 

The Bishop of Exeter* 

GIVE us Men! 
Men — from every rank, 
Fresh and free and frank; 
Men of thought and reading, 
Men of light and leading, 
Men of loyal breeding, 
The Nation's welfare speeding: 
Give us Men ! — I say again, 
Give us Men! 
Give us Men! 

Men whom highest hope inspires, 
Men whom purest honor fires, 
Men who trample Self beneath them, 
Men who make their country wreathe them, 
Men who never shame their mothers, 
Men who never fail their brothers, 
True, however false are others: 
Give us Men ! — I say again, 

Give us Men! 

Give us Men! 

Men who, when the tempest gathers, 
Grasp the standard of their fathers 

In the thickest fight: 
Men who strike for home and altar, 
(Let the coward cringe and falter). 

God defend the right! 
True as truth, though lorn and lonely, 
Tender, as the brave are only; 
Men who tread where saints have trod, 
Men for Country — Home — and God: 

Give us Men ! I say again — again — 
Give us such Men! 



*The Right Reverend Edward Henry Bickersteth, D.D., Bishop of Exeter, 
England, 1885-1900. 



16 



THE DEATH OF COLONEL NEWCOME 

William Makepeace Thackeray 

OUR Colonel, we were obliged to acknowledge, was no more our 
friend of old days. He knew us again, and was good to every- 
one around him, as his wont was. There was a little, laughing, red- 
cheeked, white-headed gown-boy of the school to whom the old man 
had taken a great fancy. One of the symptoms of his returning con- 
sciousness and recovery, as we hoped, was his calling for this child, 
who pleased our friend by his archness and merry ways; and the 
Colonel would listen to him for hours; and hear all about his lessons 
and his play. 

One afternoon he asked for his little gown-boy, and the child was 
brought to him, and sat by the bed with a very awe stricken face; and 
then gathered courage and tried to amuse him by telling him how it 
was a half-holiday, and they were having a cricket match with the 
St. Peter's boys in the green, and Greyfriars was in and winning. The 
Colonel quite understood about it; he would like to see the game; he 
had played many a game on that green when he was young. 

After the child was gone, Thomas Newcome began to wander more 
and more. He talked louder; he gave the word of command, spoke 
Hindustanee as if to his men. Then he spoke words in French rapidly, 
seizing a hand that was near him, and crying, " Toujours, toujours!" 

At the usual evening hour the chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas 
Newcome's hands outside the bed feebly beat time. And just as the 
last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he 
lifted up his head a little, and quickly said, " Adsum!" and fell back. 
It was the word we used at school, when names were called; and lo, 
he, whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name, 
and stood in the presence of The Master. 



From The Newcomes. 



17 

THE COLLEGE REVISITED 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson 

I PAST beside the reverend walls 
In which of old I wore the gown; 
I roved at random thro' the town, 
And saw the tumult of the halls; 

And heard once more in college fanes 
The storm their high-built organs make, 
And thunder-music, rolling, shake 

The prophets blazon'd on the panes; 

And caught once more the distant shout, 
The measured pulse of racing oars 
Among the willows; paced the shores 

And many a bridge and all about 

The same gray flats again, and felt 
The same, but not the same; and last 
Up that long walk of limes I past 

To see the rooms in which he dwelt. 

Another name was on the door: 
I linger'd; all within was noise 
Of songs, and clapping hands, and boys 

That crash'd the glass and beat the floor; 

Where once we held debate, a band 
Of youthful friends, on mind and art, 
And labor, and the changing mart, 

And all the framework of the land. 



From In Memoriam. The Macmillan Company. 



18 
TO AN ATHLETE DYING YOUNG 

A. E. Housman 

THE time you won your town the race 
We chaired you through the market-place; 
Man and boy stood cheering by, 
And home we brought you shoulder-high. 

To-day, the road all runners come, 
Shoulder-high we bring you home, 
And set you at your threshold down, 
Townsman of a stiller town. 

Smart lad, to slip betimes away 
From fields where glory does not stay, 
And early though the laurel grows 
It withers quicker than the rose. 

Eyes that shady night has shut 
Cannot see the record cut, 
And silence sounds no worse than cheers 
After earth has stopped the ears: 

Now you will not swell the rout 
Of lads that wore their honours out, 
Runners whom renown outran 
And the name died before the man. 

So set, before its echoes fade, 
The fleet foot on the sill of shade, 
And hold to the low lintel up 
The still-defended challenge-cup. 

And round that early-laurelled head 
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead, 
And find unwithered on its curls 
The garland briefer than a girl's. 



From A Shropshire Lad by A. E. Housman. Thomas B. Mosher. 



19 



A BOYS WORK 

Theodore Roosevelt 

NO boy can afford to neglect his work, and with a boy work, as a 
rule, means study. Of course there are occasional brilliant suc- 
cesses in life where the man has been worthless as a student when a boy. 
To take these exceptions as examples would be as unsafe as it would be 
to advocate blindness because some blind men have won undying 
honor by triumphing over their physical infirmity and accomplishing 
great results in the world. I am no advocate of senseless and exces- 
sive cramming in studies, but a boy should work, and should work 
hard, at his lessons — in the first place, for the sake of what he will 
learn, and in the next place, for the sake of the effect upon his own 
character of resolutely settling down to learn it. Shiftlessness, slack- 
ness, indifference in studying, are almost certain to mean inability 
to get on in other walks of life. Of course, as a boy gets older it is a 
good thing if he can shape his studies in the direction toward which he 
has a natural bent; but whether he can do this or not, he must put his 
whole heart into them. I do not believe in mischief-doing in school 
hours, or in the kind of animal spirits that results in making bad 
scholars; and I believe that those boys who take part in rough, hard 
play outside of school will not find any need of horse-play in school. 
While they study they should study just as hard as they play foot- 
ball in a match game. It is wise to obey the homely old adage, " Work 
while you work; play while you play!" 



From The Strenuous Life. The Century Company. 



20 



JOHN VERNEY ENTERS HARROW 

Horace Annesley Vachell 

THE train slid slowly out of Harrow station. 
Five minutes before, a man and a boy had been walking up and 
down the long platform. The boy wondered why the man, his uncle, 
was so strangely silent. Then, suddenly, the elder John Verney had 
placed his hands upon the shoulders of the younger John. 

"You'll find plenty of fellows abusing Harrow," he said quietly; 
"but take it from me, that the fault lies not in Harrow, but in them. 
Don't look so solemn. You're about to take a header into a big river. 
In it are rocks and rapids; but you know how to swim, and after the 
first plunge you'll enjoy it — as I did — amazingly." 

The train was now out of sight. John slipped the uncle's tip into 
his purse, and walked out of the station and on to the road beyond, 
the road which led to the top of the Hill. 

Presently the boy reached some iron palings and a wicket-gate. In 
obedience to an impulse stronger than himself he had taken the short 
cut to what awaited him. 

For a few minutes he stood outside the palings, trying to choke 
down an abominable lump in his throat. His heart fluttered furiously. 
John, however, had provided himself with a "cure-all." Plunging his 
hand into his pocket, he pulled out a cartridge, an unused twenty- 
bore gun cartridge. Looking at this, John smiled. 

The cartridge stood for so much. Only a week before, Uncle John, 
on his arrival from Manchuria, had handed his nephew a small leather 
case and a key. The case held a double-barrelled, hammerless, ejector, 
twenty-bore gun, with a great name upon its polished blue barrels. 

The sight of the cartridge justified John's expectations. He put it 
back into Ins pocket, and strode forward and upward. 



From The Hill. Dodd, Mead and Company. 



21 
IN HARROW CHAPEL 

Horace Annesley Vachell 

EVENSONG was over in Harrow Chapel. The Head Master, 
stately in surplice and scarlet hood, entered the pulpit. 
The subject of the sermon was "Friendship": the heart's blood of 
a Public School. 

"To-night," concluded the preacher, "this thought of friendship 
has for us a special solemnity. It is consecrated by the memory of 
one whom we have just lost. You, who are leaving the school, have 
been the friends and contemporaries of Henry Julius Desmond. 

"Tall, eager, a face to remember, 

A flush that could change as the day; 
A spirit that knew not December, 

That brightened the sunshine of May. 

"Those lines, as you know, were written of another Harrovian, who 
died here on this Hill. Henry Desmond died on another hill, and died 
so gloriously that the shadow of our loss, dark as it seemed to us at 
first, is already melting into the radiance of his gain. To die young, 
clean, ardent; to die swiftly, in perfect health; to die saving others 
from death, or worse — disgrace — to die scaling heights; to die and to 
carry with you untainted hopes and aspirations, unembittered mem- 
ories, all the freshness and gladness of May — is not that cause for 
joy rather than sorrow? I say — yes. Better death, a thousand times, 
than gradual decay of mind and spirit; better death than faithless- 
ness, indifference, and uncleanness. To you who are leaving Harrow 
I commend the memory of Henry Desmond. It stands in our records 
for all we venerate and strive for : loyalty, honour, purity, strenuous- 
ness, and faithfulness in friendship. When temptation assails you, 
think of that gallant boy running swiftly uphill, leaving craven fear 
behind, and drawing with him the others who, led by him to the 
heights, made victory possible. You cannot all be leaders; only see 
to it that they lead you, as Henry Desmond led the men of Beaure- 
gard's Horse, onward and upward." 

From The Hill. Dodd, Mead and Company. 



22 

SKATING 

William Wordsworth 

IN the frosty season, when the sun 
Was set, and, visible for many a mile, 
The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom, 
I heeded not their summons : — happy time 
It was indeed for all of us ; for me 
It was a time of rapture! — Clear and loud 
The village clock tolled six — I wheeled about, 
Proud and exulting like an untired horse 
That cares not for his home. — All shod with steel 
We hissed along the polished ice, in games 
Confederate, imitative of the chase 
And woodland pleasures, — the resounding horn, 
The pack loud-chiming, and the hunted hare. 
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud ; 
The leafless trees and every icy crag 
Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills 
Into the tumult sent an alien sound 
Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars, 
Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west 
The orange sky of evening died away. 

And oftentimes, 
When we had given our bodies to the wind, 
And all the shadowy banks on either side 
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still 
The rapid line of motion, then at once 
Have I, reclining back upon my heels, 
Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs 
Wheeled by me — even as if the earth had rolled 
With visible motion her diurnal round! 
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, 
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched 
Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep. 

From The Prelude. 



23 

VITAI LAMP ADA 

Henry Newbolt 

THERE'S a breathless hush in the close to-night 
Ten to make and the match to win — 
A bumping pitch and a blinding light, 

An hour to play and the last man in. 
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat, 

Or the selfish hope of a season's fame, 
But bis captain's hand on his shoulder smote — 
"Play up! play up! and play the game!" 

The sand of the desert is sodden red, — 

Red with the wreck of a square that broke; — 
The gatling's jammed and the colonel dead, 

And the regiment blind with dust and smoke. 
The river of death has brimmed his banks, 

And England's far, and Honour a name, 
But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks: 

"Play up! play up! and play the game!" 

This is the word that year by year, 

While in her place the School is set, 
Every one of her sons must hear, 

And none that hears it dare forget. 
This they all, with a joyful mind, 

Bear through life like a torch in flame, 
And falling fling to the host behind — 

"Play up! play up! and play the game!" 



From Admirals All, by Henry Newbolt. John Lane Company. 



24 

OXFORD IN VACATION 

Charles Lamb 

TO such a one as myself, who has been defrauded in his young 
years of the sweet food of academic institution, nowhere is so 
pleasant to while away a few idle weeks at, as at one or other of the 
Universities. Their vacation, too, at this time of the year, falls in so 
pat with ours. Here I can take my walks unmolested, and fancy 
myself of whatever degree of standing I please. I seem admitted ad 
eundem. I fetch up past opportunities. I can rise at the chapel bell, 
and dream that it rings for me. In moods of humility I can be a sizar, 
or a servitor. When the peacock vein arises, I strut a Gentleman 
Commoner. In graver moments, I proceed Master of Arts. Indeed 
I do not think I am much unlike that respectable character. I have 
seen your dim-eyed vergers, and bed-makers in spectacles, drop a 
bow or a curtsy, as I pass, wisely mistaking me for something of the 
sort. I go about in black, which favours the notion. Only in Christ's 
Church reverend quadrangle, I can be content to pass for nothing 
short of a Seraphic Doctor. 

The walks at these time are so much one's own, — the tall trees of 
Christ's, the groves of Magdalen! The halls deserted, and with open 
doors inviting one to slip in unperceived, and pay a devoir to some 
Founder, or noble or royal Benefactress (that should have been ours), 
whose portrait seems to smile upon their overlooked beadsman, and 
to adopt me for their own. Then, to take a peep in by the way at the 
butteries, and sculleries, redolent of antique hospitality; the immense 
caves of kitchen fireplaces, cordial recesses; ovens whose first pies 
were baked four centuries ago; and spits which have cooked for Chau- 
cer! Not the meanest minister among the dishes but is hallowed to 
me through his imagination, and the cook goes forth a Manciple. 



From the Essays oj Elia. 



25 
MASTER SKYLARKS FIRST APPEARANCE 

John Bennett 

""VTOW, Nick," said Carew, "thou'll enter here. When Master 

■L^l Whitelaw, as the Duke, calls out, 'How now, who comes? — 
I'll match him for the ale!' be quickly in, and answer to thy part; 
and, marry, boy, don't miss thy cues, or — tsst, thy head's not worth 
a peascod!" 

Nick heard his white teeth grind, and all was at once very much 
afraid of him. So he said his lines to himself, and cleared his throat. 

The trumpet blared, the kettledrum crashed again, and as a sudden 
hush fell over the throng without, Nick heard the voices of the players. 

"How now, who comes?" Nick heard a loud voice call outside — 
the door-latch clicked behind him — he was out and down the stage 
before he quite knew where he was. And then he heard the last 
quick words, "I'll match him for the ale!" and started on his lines. 

It was not that he said so ill what little he had to say, but that his 
voice was homelike and familiar in its sound, one of their own, with no 
amazing London accent to the words — just the speech of every-day, 
the sort that they all knew. There was a hoarse, exasperating laugh. 
Nick hesitated in his lines. The man behind him thrust him forward, 
and whispering wrathfully, "Quick, quick — sing up, thou little fool!" 
stepped back and left him there alone. 

A viol overhead took up the time, the gittern struck a few sharp 
notes. This unexpected music stopped the noise, and all was still; 
the fresh young voice came out alone, and it was done so soon that 
Nick hardly knew that he had sung at all. For a moment no one 
seemed to breathe. Then there was a very great noise, and all the 
court seemed hurling at him. He gave a frightened cry, and ran past 
the curtain, through the open door, and into the master player's 
excited arms. 

"Quick, quick!" cried Carew. "Go back, go back! There, hark! — 
dost thou not hear them call? Quick, out again — they call thee back !" 
With that he thrust Nick through the door. 

Then many voices cried out together, "Sing it again! The Sky- 
lark — the Skylark!" 

From Master Skylark. The Century Company. 



26 



ADDISON'S WALK 

T. Herbert Warren 

GREEN natural cloister of our Academe,* 
What ghost is this that greets us as we pace 
Beneath your boughs, the genius of the place, 
With soft accost that fits our musing dream? 
Scholar, divine, or statesman would beseem 
That reverend air, that pensive-brilliant face 
And lofty wit and speech of Attic grace, 
Rich in grave ornament and noble theme: 

Tis he who played unspoiled a worldly part, 
Taught the town truth, and in a formal age 
Lured fop and toast to heed a note sublime; 
Who here had early learned the crowning art, 
To walk the world like Plato's monarch-sage, 
Spectator of all being and all time. 



* Magdalen College, Oxford, famed for its beautiful "water walks," one stretch 
of which is named for Addison, "the ideal Magdalen worthy." 



27 



MAY-DAY ON MAGDALEN TOWER 

WRITTEN FOR MR. HUNT'S PICTURE* 

T. Herbert Warren 

MORN of the year, of day and May the prime! 
How fitly do we scale the steep dark stair, 
Into the brightness of the matin air, 
To praise with chanted hymn and echoing chime, 
Dear Lord of Light, Thy lowlihood sublime 

That stooped erewhile our life's frail weed to wear! 
Sun, clouds, and hills, all things Thou framest so fair, 
With us are glad and gay, greeting the time. 

The college of the lily leaves her sleep; 

The grey tower rocks and trembles into sound, 
Dawn-smitten Memnon of a happier hour; 
Through faint-hued fields the silver waters creep; 
Day grows, birds pipe, and robed anew and crowned, 
Green Spring trips forth to set the world arlower. 



* "The subject was the ceremony of May Morning, Magdalen Tower, Oxford, at 
sunrise, when the choristers sing a hymn as the sun appears above the horizon. 
For several weeks I mounted to the Tower roof about four in the morning to 
watch for the first rays of the rising sun, and to choose the sky which was most 
suitable for the subject." — Holman Hunt. 



28 

AFTER CONSTRUING 

Arthur Christopher Benson 

LORD CAESAR, when you sternly wrote 
The story of your grim campaigns, 
And watched the ragged smoke-wreaths float 
Above the burning plains, 

You little recked, imperious head, 

When shrilled your shattering trumpet's noise, 

Your frigid sections would be read 
By bright-eyed English boys. 

The Mantuan singer pleading stands; 

From century to century 
He leans and reaches wistful hands, 

And cannot bear to die. 

But you are silent, secret, proud, 

No smile upon your haggard face, 
As when you eyed the murderous crowd 

Beside the statue's base. 

I marvel — that Titanic heart 
Beats strongly through the arid page, 

And we, self-conscious sons of art, 
In this bewildering age, 

Like dizzy revellers stumbling out 

Upon the pure and peaceful night, 
Are sobered into troubled doubt, 

As swims across our sight 

The ray of that sequestered sun, 

Far in the illimitable blue, — 
The dream of all you left undone, 

Of all you dared to do. 

From The Poems of Arthur Christopher Benson. John Lane Company. 



29 



A MESSAGE TO GARCIA 

Elbert Hubbard 

WHEN war broke out between Spain and the United States, it 
was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader 
of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain fastnesses 
of Cuba — no one knew where. No mail or telegraph message could 
reach him. The President must secure his co-operation and quickly. 

What to do! 

Some one said to the President, "There's a fellow by the name of 
Rowan will find Garcia for you if anybody can." Rowan was sent 
for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How " the fellow by 
the name of Rowan" took the letter, sealed it up in an oilskin pouch, 
strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast 
of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, and in three 
weeks came out on the other side of the island, having traversed a 
hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia, are things 
I have no special desire now to tell in detail. 

The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter 
to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, 
" Where is he at?" By the Eternal ! there is a man whose form should 
be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college in 
the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about 
this and that, but a stiff ening"of the vertebrae which will cause them to 
be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies; do 
the thing, "Carry a message to Garcia!" 



Extract from an article in the Philistine for March, i£ 



30 

ON ENTERING CAMBRIDGE 

William Wordsworth 

IT was a dreary morning when the wheels 
Rolled over a wide plain o'erhung with clouds, 
And nothing cheered our way till first we saw 
The long-roofed chapel of King's College lift 
Turrets and pinnacles in answering files, 
Extended high above a dusky grove. 

Advancing, we espied upon the road 

A student clothed in gown and tasseled cap, 

Striding along as if o'ertasked by Time, 

Or covetous of exercise and air; 

He passed — nor was I master of my eyes 

Till he was left an arrow's flight behind. 

Onward we drove beneath the Castle; caught, 

While crossing Magdalene Bridge, a glimpse of Cam; 

And at the Hoop alighted, famous Inn. 

Some friends I had, acquaintances who there 

Seemed friends, poor simple school-boys, now hung round 

With honour and importance: in a world 

Of welcome faces up and down I roved; 

Questions, directions, warnings and advice, 

Flowed in upon me from all sides. 

I was the Dreamer; they the Dream; I roamed 

Delighted through the motley spectacle: 

Gowns grave, or gaudy, doctors, students, streets, 

Courts, cloisters, flocks of churches, gateways, towers: 

Migration strange for a stripling of the hills, 

A northern villager. 



From The Prelude. 



31 
AN UNDERGRADUATE AT ST. JOHNS 

William Wordsworth 

THE Evangelist St. John my patron was: 
Three Gothic courts are his, and in the first 
Was my abiding-place, a nook obscure; 
Right underneath, the College kitchens made 
A humming sound, less tuneable than bees, 
But hardly less industrious; with shrill notes 
Of sharp command and scolding intermixed. 
Near me hung Trinity's loquacious clock, 
Who never let the quarters, night or day, 
Slip by him unproclaimed, and.told the hours 
Twice over with a male and female voice. 
Her pealing organ was my neighbour too; 
And from my pillow, looking forth by light 
Of moon or favouring stars, I could behold 
The antechapel where the statue stood 
Of Newton with his prism and silent face, 
The marble index of a mind forever 
Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone. 

Beside the pleasant Mill of Trompington 
I laughed with Chaucer in the hawthorne shade; 
Sweet Spenser, moving through his clouded heaven 
With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace, 
I called him Brother, Englishman, and Friend ! 
Yea, our blind Poet, who, in his later day, 
Stood almost single; uttering odious truth — 
Darkness before, and danger's voice behind, 
An awful soul — I seemed to see him here 
Familiarly, and in his scholar's dress 
Bounding before me, yet a stripling youth — 
A boy, no better, with his rosy cheeks 
Angelical, keen eye, courageous look, 
And conscious step of purity and pride. 

From The Prelude. 



32 

THE RACE OF LIFE 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 

NOTHING strikes one more, in the race of life, than to see how 
many give out in the first half of the course. "Commencement 
Day" always reminds me of the start for the "Derby," when the beau- 
tiful high-bred three-year-olds are brought up for trial. That day 
is the start and lif e is the race. Here they are, — coats bright as silk 
and manes as smooth as eau lustrale can make them. Some of the 
best of the colts are pranced round, a few minutes each, to show their 
paces. What is that old gentleman crying about? and the old lady by 
him, and the three girls, what are they all covering their eyes for? Oh, 
that is their colt which has just been trotted upon the stage. Do they 
really think those little thin legs can do anything in such a slashing 
sweepstakes as is coming off in these next forty years? 

Ten years gone. First turn in the race. A few broken down; two 
or three bolted. Several show in advance of the ruck. 

Twenty years. Second corner turned. But look! how they have 
thinned out. Down flat, — five, six, — how many? They he still 
enough! And the rest of them, what a "tailing off"! 

Thirty years. Third corner turned. The black "colt," as we used 
to call him, is in the background, taking it easily in a gentle trot. 

Forty years. More dropping off ,— but places much as before. 

Fifty years. Race over. All that are on the course are coming in 
at a walk; no more running. Who is ahead? Ahead? What! and the 
winning post a slab of gray stone standing out from the turf where 
there is no more jockeying or straining for victory! Well, the world 
marks their places in its betting-book; but be sure that these matter 
very little, if they have run as well as they knew how. 



From The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. By permission of, and by special 
arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Company. 



33 
OUT TO OLD AUNT MARYS 

James Whitcomb Riley 

WASN'T it pleasant, brother mine, 
In those old days of the lost sunshine 
Of youth — when the Saturday's chores were through, 
And the "Sunday's wood" in the kitchen, too, 
And we went visiting, "me and you," 
Out to Old Aunt Mary's? 

It all comes back so clear to-day! 
Though I am as bald as you are gray, — 
Out by the barn-lot and down the lane 
We patter along in the dust again, 
As light as the tips of the drops of the rain, 
Out to Old Aunt Mary's. 

We cross the pasture, and through the wood, 
Where the old gray snag of the poplar stood, 
Where the hammering "red-heads" hopped awry, 
And the buzzard "raised" in the "clearing" sky 
And lolled and circled, as we went by 
Out to Old Aunt Mary's. 

Why, I see her now in the open door, 
Where the little gourds grew up the sides and o'er 
The clapboard roof! — And her face — ah, me! 
Wasn't it good for a boy to see — 
Wasn't it good for a boy to be 
Out to Old Aunt Mary's? 

And, my brother, so far away, 
This is to tell you — she waits to-day 
To welcome us: — Aunt Mary fell 
Asleep this morning, whispering, "Tell 
The boys to come!" . . . And all is well 
Out to Old Aunt Mary's. 

From the Biographical Edition of the Complete Works of James Whitcomb 
Riley, Copyright 1913; used by special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs- 
Merrill Company. 



34 



WHEN I WAS TWENTY-ONE 

William Makepeace Thackeray 

WITH pensive eyes the little room I view, 
Where in my youth I weathered it so long, 
With a chance companion, a staunch friend or two, 

And a light heart still breaking into song; 
Making a mock of life and all its cares, 

Rich in the glory of my rising sun, 
Lightly I vaulted up four pairs of stairs, 
In the brave days when I was twenty-one. 

Yes, 'tis a garret ; let him know't who will. 

There was my bed — full hard it was and small ; 
My table there — and I decipher still, 

Half a lame couplet, charcoaled on the wall. 

One jolly evening when my friends and I, 

Made happy music with our songs and cheers, 
A shout of triumph mounted up thus high 

And distant cannon opened on our ears; 
We rise — we join in the triumphant strain — 

Napoleon conquers — Austerlitz is won — 
Tyrants shall never tread us down again, 

In the brave days when I was twenty-one. 

Let us begone — the place is sad and strange. 

How far, far off these happy times appear ! 
All that I have to live I'd gladly change 

For one such month as I have wasted here — 
To draw long dreams of beauty, love, and power, 

From founts of hope that never will return, 
And drink all life's quintessence in an hour, 

Give me the days when I was twenty-one. 



35 



LITTLE MARLOWE AT CANTERBURY 

Alfred Noyes 

A COBBLER lived in Canterbury- 
He sat at his door and stitched in the sun, 
Nodding and smiling at every one; 
And anon he would cry 
"Kit! Kit! Kit!" to his little son, 
"Look at the pilgrims riding by! 
Dance down, hop down, after them, run!" 
Then, like an unfledged linnet, out 
Would tumble the brave little lad, 
With a piping shout, — 

"0, look at them, look at them, look at them, Dad! 
How many countries have they seen? 
Is there a king there, is there a queen? 
Dad, one day, 

Thou and I must ride like this, 
All along the Pilgrim's Way, 
By Glastonbury and Samarcand, 
El Dorado and Cathay, 
London and Persepolis, 
All the way to the Holy Land!" 

Then, shaking his head as if he knew, 
Under the sign of the Golden Shoe, 
The little cobbler would laugh and say: 
"When you are old you will understand 
'Tis a very long way 
To Samarcand! 

'Tis a hundred miles from where you stand; 
And a hundred more, my little son, 
A hundred more, to Holy Land! 
The cobbler must stick to his last." 

Adapted from The Sign of the Golden Shoe in Tales of the Mermaid Tavern, by 
Alfred Noyes. Frederick A. Stokes Company. 



36 



A CRICKET BOWLER 

Edward Cracroft Lefroy 

TWO minutes' rest till the next man goes in ! 
The tired arms lie with every sinew slack 
On the mown grass. Unbent the supple back, 
And elbows apt to make the leather spin 
Up the slow bat and round the unwary shin — 
In knavish hands a most unkindly knack; 
But no guile shelters under this boy's black 
Crisp hair, frank eyes, and honest English skin. 

Two minutes only. Conscious of a name, 

The new man plants his weapon with profound 

Long-practised skill that no mere trick may scare. 

Not loth, the rested lad resumes the game: 

The flung ball takes one maddening tortuous bound, 

And the mid-stump three somersaults in air. 



From Echoes of Theocritus and Other Sonnets. Published in England by John 
Lane, represented in America by John Lane Company. 



37 



A FOOTBALL PLAYER 

Edward Cracroft Lefroy 

IF I could paint you, friend, as you stand there, 
Guard of the goal, defensive, open-eyed, 
Watching the tortured bladder slide and glide 
Under the twinkling feet; arms bare, head bare, 
The breeze a- tremble through crow-tufts of hair; 
Red-brown in face, and ruddier having spied 
A wily foeman breaking from the side; 
Aware of him, — of all else unaware: 

If I could limn you, as you leap and fling 
Your weight against his passage, like a wall; 
Clutch him, and collar him, and rudely cling 
For one brief moment till he falls — you fall: 
My sketch would have what Art can never give — 
Sinew and breath and body; it would live. 



From Echoes of Theocritus and Other Sonnets. Published in England by John 
Lane, represented in America by John Lane Company. 



38 



OPPORTUNITY 

Edward Rowland Sill 

THIS I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream: — 
There spread a cloud of dust along a plain; 
And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged 
A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords 
Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner 
Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes. 
A craven hung along the battle's edge 
And thought, " Had I a sword of keener steel — 
That blue blade that the king's son bears, — but this 
Blunt thing — !" he snapt and flung it from his hand, 
And lowering crept away and left the field. 
Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead, 
And weaponless, and saw the broken sword, 
Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand, 
And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout 
Lifted afresh, he hewed his enemy down, 
And saved a great cause that heroic day. 



From Poems, by permission of, and by special arrangement with Houghton 
Mifflin Company. 



39 



RULES FOR THE GAME OF LIFE 

Edward Rowland Sill 

LIFE is a game the soul can play 
With fewer pieces than men say. 
Only to grow as the grass grows, 
Prating not of joys or woes; 
To burn as the steady hearth-fire burns; 
To shine as the star can shine, 
Or only as the mote of dust that turns 
Darkling and twinkling in the beam of light divine. 

I will be glad to be and do, 

And glad of all good men that live, 

For they are woof of nature too; 

Glad of the poets every one, 

Pure Longfellow, great Emerson, 

And all that Shakespeare's world can give. 

When the road is dust, and the grass dries, 

Then will I gaze on the deep skies; 

And if Dame Nature frown in cloud, 

Well, mother — then my heart will say — 

You cannot so drive me away; 

I will still exult aloud, 

Companioned of the good hard ground, 

Whereon stout hearts of every clime, 

In battles of all time, 

Foothold and couch have found. 



From Field Notes in Poems. By permission of, and by special arrangement with 
Houghton Mifflin Company. 



40 

CHRISTMAS AT SEA 

Robert Louis Stevenson 

ALL day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the 
North; 
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth; 
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread, 
For very lif e and nature we tacked from head to head. 

The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer; 
For it's just as I should tell you how (of all days in the year) 
This day of our adversity was blessed Christmas morn, 
And the house above the coastguard's was the house where I was born. 

And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me, 
Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea; 
And O, the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way, 
To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day. 

They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall. 

"All hands to loose topgallant sails," I heard the captain call. 

"By the Lord, she'll never stand it," our first mate, Jackson, cried. 

"It's the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson," he replied. 

She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good, 
And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood. 
As the winter's day was ending, in the entry of the night, 
We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light. 

And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me, 

As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea; 

But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold, 

Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old. 



Abbreviated from the poem by the same title, in Poems and Ballads. Charles 
Scribner's Sons. 



41 
DEEDS AND CHARACTER 



JOHN, MOST RUTHLESS OF THE ANGEVINS 

John Richard Green 

" T70UL as it is, hell is defiled by the fouler presence of John." The 
*- terrible verdict of the King's contemporaries has passed into the 
sober judgment of history. In his inner soul John was the worst out- 
come of the Angevins. He united into one mass of wickedness their 
insolence, selfishness, cruelty and tyranny. In mere boyhood he had 
torn with brutal levity the beards of the Irish chieftains who came 
to own him as their lord. To his brother he had been the worst of 
traitors. All Christendom believed him to be the murderer of his 
nephew, Arthur of Britanny. He abandoned one wife and was faith- 
less to another. His punishments were refinements of cruelty — the 
starvation of little children, the crushing of old men under copes of 
lead. His court was a brothel where no woman was safe. He was 
craven in his superstition as he was daring in his impiety. He scoffed 
at priests and turned his back on the mass amidst the solemnities of 
his coronation, but he never stirred on a journey without hanging 
relics round his neck. 

But with the supreme wickedness of his race he inherited its pro- 
found ability. Throughout his reign he was quick to discern the 
difficulties of his position, and inexhaustible in the resources with 
which he met them. The overthrow of his continental power only 
spurred him to the formation of a great league, which all but brought 
Philip to the ground; and the sudden revolt of all England was 
parried by a shameless alliance with the Papacy. The awful lesson 
of his life rests on the fact that it was no weak and indolent volup- 
tuary, but the ablest and most ruthless of the Angevins who lost 
Normandy, became the vassal of the Pope, and perished in a strug- 
gle of despair against English freedom. 



From A Short History of the English People 



42 



THE ENGLISH ADMIRALS 

Robert Louis Stevenson 

OUR admirals discovered a startling eagerness for battles and 
courted war like a mistress. When the news came to Essex 
before Cadiz that the attack had been decided, he threw his hat into 
the sea. It is in this way that a schoolboy hears of a half-holiday; 
but this was a bearded man of great possessions who had just been 
allowed to risk his life. Benbow could not lie still in his bunk after 
he had lost his leg; he must be on deck in a basket to direct and 
animate the fight. I said they loved war like a mistress; yet I think 
there are not many mistresses we should continue to woo under 
similar circumstances. Trowbridge went ashore with the Culloden, 
and was able to take no part in the battle of the Nile. "The merits 
of that ship and her gallant captain," wrote Nelson to the Admiralty, 
"are too well known to benefit by anything I could say. Her mis- 
fortune was great in getting aground, while her more fortunate com- 
panions were- in the full tide of happiness." This is a notable expres- 
sion, and depicts the whole great-hearted, big-spoken stock of the 
English admirals to a hair. Their sayings and doings stir English 
blood like the sound of a trumpet; and if the Indian Empire, the 
trade of London, and all outward and visible ensigns of our greatness 
should pass away, we should still leave behind us a durable monument 
of what we were in these sayings and doings of the English Admirals. 



Adapted from The English Admirals in Virginibus Puerisque. Charles Scrib- 
ner's Sons. 



43 

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE 

Alfred Noyes 

Sirs, my life 
Was hardly safe with him. Why, he resolved 
To storm the Castle of St. Vincent, sirs, 
A castle on a cliff, grinning with guns, 
Well-known impregnable! The Spaniards fear 
Drake; but to see him land below it and bid 
Surrender, sirs, the strongest fort of Spain 
Without a blow, they laughed! And straightway he, 
With all the fury of Satan, turned that cliff 
To hell itself. He sent down to the ships 
For faggots, broken oars, beams, bowsprits, masts, 
And piled them up against the outer gates, 
Higher and higher, and fired them. There he stood 
Amid the smoke and flame and cannon-shot, 
This Admiral, like a common seaman, black 
With soot, besmeared with blood, his naked arms 
Full of great faggots, laboring like a giant 
And roaring like Apollyon. Sirs, he is mad! 
But did he take it, say you? Yea, he took it, 
The mightiest stronghold on the coast of Spain, 
Took it and tumbled all its big brass guns 
Clattering over the cliffs into the sea. 
But, sirs, ye need not raise a cheer so loud! 
It is not warfare. 'Twas a madman's trick, 
A devil's! 



From Drake in Collected Poems, Vol. I, by Alfred Noyes. Frederick A. Stokes 
Company. 



44 

DRAKE'S DRUM 

Hekry Newbolt 

DRAKE he's in his hammock an' a thousand mile away, 
(Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?) 
Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay, 

An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe. 
Yarnder lumes the island, yarnder lie the ships, 

Wi' sailor lads a-dancin' heel-an-toe, 
An' the shore-lights flashin', and the night- tide dashin', 
He sees it arl so plainly as he saw et long ago. 

Drake he was a Devon man, an' ruled the Devon seas, 

(Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?) 
Rovin' tho' his death fell, he went wi' heart at ease, 

An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe. 
"Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore, 

Strike et when your powder's runnin' low; 
If the Dons sight Devon, I'll quit the port of Heaven, 

An' drum them up the Channel as we drummed them long ago!" 

Drake he's in his hammock till the great Armadas come, 

(Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?) 
Slung atween the round shot, listenin' for the drum, 

An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe. 
Call on him on the deep sea, call him up the Sound, 

Call him when ye sail to meet the foe; 
Where the old trade's plyin' an' the old flag flyin' 

They shall find him ware an' wakin', as they found him long ago! 



From Admirals All by Henry Newbolt. John Lane Company. 



45 



THE DEATH OF SIR RICHARD GRENVILLE 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson 

THE stately Spanish men to their flagship bore him then, 
Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last; 
And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace; 
But he rose upon their decks, and he cried: 

"I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and true; 
I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do: 
With a joyful spirit I, Sir Richard Grenville, die!" 
And he fell upon their decks, and he died. 

And they stared at the dead that had been so valiant and true, 

And had holden the power and glory of Spain so cheap 

That he dared with his one little ship and his English few; 

Was he devil or man? He was devil for aught they knew, 

But they sank his body with honor down into the deep, 

And they mann'd the Revenge with a swarthier alien crew, 

And away she sail'd with her loss and long'd for her own; 

When a wind from the lands they had ruin'd awoke from sleep, 

And the water began to heave and the weather to moan,. 

And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew, 

And a wave like a wave that is raised by an earthquake grew, 

Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their masts and their flags, 

And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shatter'd navy of Spain, 

And the little Revenge herself went down by the island crags 

To be lost evermore in the main. 



From The Revenge, A Ballad of the Fleet. The Macmillan Company. 



46 

BY THE STATUE OF KING CHARLES AT CHAR- 
ING CROSS 

Lionel Johnson 

COMELY and calm, he rides 
Hard by his own Whitehall : 
Only the night wind glides : 
No crowds, nor rebels, brawl. 

Gone, too, his Court; and yet, 
The stars his courtiers are: 
Stars in their stations set; 
And every wandering star. 

Alone he rides, alone, 
The fair and fatal king: 
Dark night is all his own, 
That strange and solemn thing. 

Armoured he rides, his head 
Bare to the stars of doom; 
He triumphs now, the dead, 
Beholding London's gloom. 

King, tried in fires of woe ! 
Men hunger for they grace: 
And through the night I go, 
Loving thy mournful face. 

Yet, when the city sleeps; 
When all the cries are still: 
The stars and heavenly deeps 
Work out a perfect will. 



From Twenty-One Poems, by Lionel Johnson. T. B. Mosher. 



47 

CHARACTER OF CHARLES I 

Thomas Babington Macaulay 

THE advocates of Charles, like the advocates of other malefac- 
tors against whom overwhelming evidence is produced, general- 
ly decline aU controversy about the facts, and content themselves 
with calling testimony to character. He had so many private vir- 
tues ! . . . And what, after all, are the virtues ascribed to Charles? 
A religious zeal, not more sincere than that of his son, and fully as 
weak and narrow-minded, and a few of the ordinary household 
decencies which half the tombstones in England claim for those who 
lie beneath them. A good father! A good husband! Ample apologies 
indeed for fifteen years of persecution, tyranny, and falsehood! 

We charge him with having broken his coronation oath; and we 
are told that he kept his marriage vow. We accuse him of having 
given up his people to the merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed 
and hard-hearted of prelates; and the defence is, that he took his 
little son on his knee and kissed him! We censure him for having 
violated the articles of the Petition of Right, after having, for good 
and valuable consideration, promised to observe them; and we are 
informed that he was accustomed to hear prayers at six o'clock in 
the morning! It is to such considerations as these, together with his 
Vandyke dress, his handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he 
owes, we verily believe, most of his popularity with the present gen- 
eration. 

For ourselves, we own that we do. not understand the common 
phrase, "a good man, but a bad king." We can as easily conceive 
a good man and an unnatural father, or a good man and a treacherous 
friend. We cannot in estimating the character of an individual, 
leave out of our consideration his conduct in the most important of 
all human relations; and if in that relation we find him to have been 
selfish, cruel, and deceitful, we shall take the liberty to call him a 
bad man in spite of all his temperance at table and all his regularity 
at chapel. 



From the essay on Milton. 



48 



WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION 

George William Curtis 

TO lead a people in revolution wisely and successfully, without 
ambition and without a crime, demands indeed lofty genius and 
unbending virtue. But to build their State amid the angry conflict 
of passion and prejudice, to peacefully inaugurate a complete and 
satisfactory government — this is the greatest service that a man can 
render to mankind. But this also is the glory of Washington. 

With the sure sagacity of a leader of men, he selected at once for the 
three highest stations the three chief Americans. Hamilton was 
the head, Jefferson was the heart, and John Jay the conscience of 
his administration. Washington's just and serene ascendency was 
the lambent flame in which these beneficent powers were fused; and 
nothing else than that ascendency could have ridden the whirlwind 
and directed the storm that burst around him. Party spirit blazed 
into fury. John Jay was hung in effigy; Hamilton was stoned; insur- 
rection raised its head in the West ; Washington himself was denounced. 
But the great soul was undismayed. Without a beacon, without a 
chart, but with unwavering eye and steady hand, he guided his country 
safe through darkness and through storm. He held his steadfast way, 
like the sun across the firmament, giving life and health and strength 
to the new nation; and upon a searching survey of his administration, 
there is no great act which his country would annul; no word spoken, 
no line written, no deed done by him, which justice would reverse or 
wisdom deplore. 

From Orations and Addresses. Harper and Brothers. 



49 



THE PATRIOTS OF LEXINGTON 

Theodore Parker 

ONE raw morning in spring — it will be eighty years the 19th day 
of this month — Hancock and Adams, the Moses and Aaron 
of that Great Deliverance, were both at Lexington; they also had 
"obstructed an officer" with brave words. British soldiers, a thou- 
sand strong, came to seize them and carry them over sea for trial, and 
so nip the bud of Freedom auspiciously opening in that early spring. 
The town militia came together before daylight, "for training." A 
great, tall man, with a large head and a high, wide brow, their cap- 
tain, — one who had "seen service," — marshaled them into line, 
numbering but seventy, and bade "every man load his piece with 
powder and ball. I will order the first man shot that runs away," 
said he, when some faltered. "Don't fire unless fired upon, but if 
they want to have a war, let it begin here." 

Gentlemen, you know what followed; those farmers and mechanics 
"fired the shot heard around the world." A little monument covers 
the bones of such as before had pledged their fortune and their sacred 
honor to the Freedom of America, and that day gave it also their 
lives. I was born in that little town, and bred up amid the memories 
of that day. When a boy I read the first monumental line I ever saw — 
"Sacred to Liberty and the Rights of Mankind." 

Since then I have studied the memorial marbles of Greece and 
Rome, in many an ancient town; nay, on Egyptian obelisks, have 
read what was written before the Eternal roused up Moses to lead 
Israel out of Egypt; but no chiseled stone has ever stirred me to 
such emotions as those rustic names of men who fell "In the Sacred 
Cause of God and their Country." 



50 



THE MINUTE MAN 

George William Curtis 

THE minute-man of the American Revolution — who was he? 
He was Captain Miles, of Concord, who said that he went to 
battle as he went to church. He was Captain Davis, of Acton, who 
reproved his men for jesting on the march. He was Deacon Josiah 
Haynes, of Sudbury, eighty years old, who marched with his company 
to the South Bridge at Concord, then joined in the hot pursuit to 
Lexington, and fell as gloriously as Warren at Bunker Hill. He was 
James Hayward, of Acton, twenty-two years old, foremost in that 
deadly race from Concord to Charlestown, who raised his piece at the 
same moment with a British soldier, each exclaiming, "You are a 
dead man!" The Briton dropped, shot through the heart. James 
Hayward fell mortally wounded. 

This was the minute-man of the Revolution, the rural citizen train- 
ed in the common school, the church, and the town-meeting; who 
carried a bayonet that thought, whose gun, loaded with a principle, 
brought down, not a man, but a system. Him we gratefully recall 
to-day; him, in yon manly figure wrought in the metal which but feebly 
typifies his inexorable will, we commit in his immortal youth to the 
reverence of our children. And here among these peaceful fields — 
here in the country whose children first gave their blood for American 
union and independence, and, eighty-six years later, gave it, first also, 
for a truer union and a larger liberty — here in the heart of Middlesex 
county, of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill, stand fast, Son of 
Liberty, as the minute-man stood at the old North Bridge! 



From Orations and Addresses. Harper and Brothers. 



51 



THE AMERICAN SAILOR 

Robert F. Stockton 

LOOK to your history, — that part of it which the world knows 
by heart, — and you will find on its brightest page the glorious 
achievements of the American sailor. Who, in the darkest days of our 
Revolution, carried your flag into the very chops of the British Chan- 
nel, bearded the lion in his den, and woke the echoes of old Albion's 
hills by the thunders of his cannon, and the shouts of his triumph? 
It was the American sailor. And the names of John Paul Jones, and 
the Bon Homme Richard, will go down the annals of time for ever. 
Who struck the first blow that humbled the Barbary flag? It was 
the American sailor. And the name of Decatur and his gallant com- 
panions will be as lasting as monumental brass. In your war of 
1812, when your arms on shore were covered by disaster, who first 
relit the fires of national glory, and made the welkin ring with the 
shouts of victory? It was the American sailor. And the names of 
Hull and the Constitution will be remembered, as long as we have 
left anything worth remembering. That one event was worth more 
to the republic than all the money which has ever been expended for 
the navy. Since that day, the navy has had no stain upon its escutch- 
eon, but has been cherished as your pride and glory. And the Ameri- 
can sailor has established a reputation throughout the world, — in 
peace and in war, in storm and in battle, — for heroism and prowess 
unsurpassed. Excite his emulation, stimulate his ambition, by re- 
wards, and inspire him with the love and confidence for your service ! 



From the speech Against Flogging in the Navy. 



52 



TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE 

Wendell Phillips 

CROMWELL never saw an army till he was forty; Toussaint 
L'Ouverture never saw a soldier till he was fifty. Cromwell 
manufactured his own army — out of what? Englishmen, — the best 
blood of Europe. Out of the middle class of Englishmen, — the best 
blood of the island. And with it he conquered what? Englishmen, — 
their equals. This man manufactured his army out of what? Out of 
what you call the despicable race of negroes, debased, demoralized by 
two hundred years of slavery, one hundred thousand of them imported 
into the island within four years, unable to speak a dialect intelligible 
even to each other. Yet out of this mixed and, as you say, despicable 
mass he forged a thunder-bolt, and hurled it at what? At the proudest 
blood in Europe, the Spaniard, and sent him home conquered; at the 
most warlike blood in Europe, the French, and put them under his 
feet; at the pluckiest blood in Europe, the English, and they skulked 
home to Jamaica. Now, if Cromwell was a general, at least this man 
was a soldier. 

You think me a fanatic, for you read history, not with your eyes 
but with your prejudices. But fifty years hence, when Truth gets a 
hearing, the Muse of history will put Phocion for the Greek, Brutus 
for the Roman, Hampden for England, Fayette for France, choose 
Washington as the bright consummate flower of our earlier civiliza- 
tion, then, dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear blue, 
above them all, the name of the soldier, the statesman, the martyr, 
Toussaint L'Ouverture. 



From Speeches, Lectures, and Letters. Lothrop, Lee, and Shepard Company. 



53 

ADAMS AND JEFFERSON 

Daniel Webster 

ADAMS and Jefferson are no more. But how little is there of 
the great and good which can die ! To their country they yet 
live, and live forever. They live in their example; and they live 
emphatically, and will live in the influence which their lives and 
efforts, their principles and opinions, now exercise, and will continue 
to exercise, on the affairs of men, not only in their own country, but 
throughout the civilized world. 

No two men now live — perhaps it may be doubted whether any 
two men have ever lived in one age — who, more than those we 
now commemorate, have impressed their own sentiments, in regard 
to politics and government, on mankind; infused their own opinions 
more deeply into the opinions of others; or given a more lasting 
direction to the current of human thought. Their work doth not 
perish with them. The tree which they assisted to plant will flourish, 
although they water it and protect it no longer: for it has struck 
its roots deep; it has sent them to the very centre; no storm, not of 
force to burst the orb, can overturn it; its branches spread wide; 
they stretch their protecting arms broader and broader, and its top 
is destined to reach the heavens. 

We are not deceived. There is no delusion here. No age will 
come, in which the American revolution will appear less than it is, — 
one of the greatest events in human history. No age will come, in 
which it will cease to be seen and felt, on either continent, that a 
mighty step, a great advance, not only in American affairs, but in 
human affairs, was made on the 4th of July, 1776. And no age will 
come, we trust, so ignorant, or so unjust, as not to see and acknowl- 
edge the efficient agency of these we now honor, in producing that 
momentous event. 



54 

WEBSTER IN THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE 

Henry Cabot Lodge 

WHEN Mr. Webster had finished his argument, he stood silent 
for some moments, until every eye was fixed upon him; then, 
addressing the Chief Justice, he said: — 

"This, sir, is my case. It is the case not merely of that humble 
institution, it is the case of every college in the land. 

"Sir, you may destroy this little institution; it is weak; it is in your 
hands! I know it is one of the lesser lights in the literary horizon of 
our country. You may put it out. But if you do so, you must carry 
through your work ! You must extinguish, one after another, all those 
greater lights of science which for more than a century have thrown 
their radiance over our land. It is, sir, as I have said, a small college. 
And yet there are those who love it." 

Here his feelings mastered him; his eyes filled with tears, his lips 
quivered, his voice choked. In broken words of tenderness he spoke 
of his attachment to the college, and his tones seemed filled with mem- 
ories of home and boyhood; of early affections and youthful privations 
and struggles. 

"The court room," says Mr. Goodrich, "during these two or 
three minutes presented an extraordinary spectacle. Chief Justice 
Marshall bent over as if to catch the slightest whisper, his eyes 
suffused with tears; Mr. Justice Washington, leaning forward with 
an eager troubled look; and the remainder of the court pressing, 
as it were, to a single point. 

"Mr. Webster had now recovered his composure, and fixing his 
keen eyes on the Chief Justice, said: — 

"'Sir, I know not how others may feel, but for myself, when I see 
my Alma Mater surrounded, like Caesar in the senate-house, by those 
who are reiterating stab after stab, I would not, for this right hand, 
have her turn to me and say, 'Et tu quoque, mi filil' 'And thou too, 
my son!'" 



From Daniel Webster in American Statesmen Series. By permission of Hon. 
Henry Cabot Lodge and also of Houghton Mifflin Company. 



55 



WEBSTER AT BUNKER HILL 

Samuel G. Goodrich 

THE first time I ever saw Mr. Webster was on the 17th of June, 
1825, at the laying of the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill 
Monument. I shall never forget his appearance as he strode across 
the open area, encircled by some fifty thousand persons — men and 
women — waiting for the "Orator of the Day," nor the shout that 
simultaneously burst forth, as he was recognized, carrying up to the 
skies the name of "Webster!" "Webster!" "Webster!" 

It was one of those lovely days in June, when the sun is bright, the 
air clear, and the breath of nature so sweet and pure as to fill every 
bosom with a grateful joy in the mere consciousness of existence. 
There were present long files of soldiers in their holiday attire; there 
were many associations, with their mottoed banners; there were 
lodges and grand lodges in white aprons and blue scarfs; there were 
miles of citizens from the towns and the country round about: 
there were two hundred gray-haired men, remnants of the days of the 
Revolution; there was among them a stranger, of great mildness and 
dignity of appearance, on whom all eyes rested, and when his name 
was known, the air echoed with the cry — "Welcome, welcome, La- 
fayette!" 

I have looked on many mighty men — and yet not one of these ap- 
proached Mr. Webster in the commanding power of their personal 
presence. There was a grandeur in his form, an intelligence in his 
deep dark eye, a loftiness in his expansive brow, a significance in his 
arched lip, altogether beyond those of any other human being I ever 
saw. And these, on the occasion to which I allude, had their full 
expression and interpretation. 



56 
ROBERT BURNS 

Newell Dwight Hillis 

WHAT Raphael is in color, what Mozart is in music, that Burns 
is in song. With his sweet words, "the mother soothes her 
child, the lover wooes his bride, the soldier wins .his victory." His 
biographer says his genius was so overmastering that the news of 
Burns ' arrival at the village inn drew farmers from their fields, and 
at midnight wakened travelers, who left their beds to listen, delighted, 
until the morn. 

One day this child of poverty and obscurity left his plow behind, 
and entering the drawing-rooms of Edinburgh, met Scotland's most 
gifted scholars, her noblest lords and ladies. Mid these scholars, 
statesmen, and philosophers, he blazed "like a torch amidst the 
tapers," showing himself wiser than the scholars, wittier than the 
humorists, kinglier than the courtliest. And yet, in the very prime of 
his midmanhood, Burns lay down to die, a broken-hearted man. He 
who had sinned much suffered much, and being the victim of his own 
folly, he was also the victim of ingratitude and misfortune. Be- 
wildered by his debts, he seems like an untamed eagle beating against 
bars he cannot break. The last time he lifted his pen upon the page 
it was not to give immortal form to some exquisite lyric he had fash- 
ioned, but to beg a friend in Edinburgh for a loan of ten pounds to 
save him from the terrors of a debtor's prison. Carlyle thinks Burns 
received more rather than less of the kindnesses usually bestowed 
upon great teachers. We are told, too, that Tasso polished his cantos 
in a madhouse, Cervantes perfected his pages in a prison, Roger Bacon 
wrought out his principles in a dungeon, Locke was banished and 
wrote his treatise on the mind while shivering in a Dutch garret, and 
by contrast with the lot of other worthies Burns seems the child of 
good fortune. In the last analysis the blame is with the poet himself. 
Not want of good fortune without, but want of good guidance within, 
wrecked this youth. Save Saul alone, history holds no sadder tragedy 
than that of Burns, who sang "the short and simple annals of the 
poor." 

From Great Books as Life Teachers, by Newell Dwight Hillis. Copyright, 1898, 
1899, by Fleming H. Revell Company. 



57 

NAPOLEON 

Robert Green Ingersoll 

A LITTLE while ago, I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon, 
and thought of the career of the greatest soldier of the modern 
world. I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine contemplat- 
ing suicide. I saw him at Toulon. I saw him putting down the mob 
in the streets of Paris. I saw him at the head of the army of Italy. 
I saw him crossing the bridge at Lodi with the tri-color in his hand. 
I saw him in Egypt, in the shadows of the Pyramids. I saw him con- 
quer the Alps and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of the 
crags. I saw him at Marengo, at Ulm, and at Austerlitz. I saw him 
in Russia, where the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wild 
blast scattered his legions like winter's withered leaves. I saw him 
at Leipsic in defeat and disaster — driven by a million bayonets 
back upon Paris — clutched like a wild beast — banished to Elba. 
I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his genius. I 
saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, when chance and fate 
combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him 
at St. Helena, with his arms crossed behind him, gazing out upon the 
sad and solemn sea. 

I thought of the orphans and widows he had made — of the tears 
that had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever 
loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. 
And I said, I would rather have been a French peasant and worn 
wooden shoes. I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing 
over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the amorous kisses 
of the autumn sun. I would rather have been that poor peasant, 
with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the 
sky — with my children upon my knees and their arms about me — 
I would rather have been that man, and gone down to the tongueless 
silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial inper- 
sonation of force and murder, known as Napoleon the Great. 



Adapted from Prose-Poems and Selections from the Writings of Robert Ingersoll. 
C. P. Farrell. New York. 



58 
LINCOLN, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE 

Edwin Markham 

WHEN the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour 
Greatening and darkening as it hurried on, 
She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down 
To make a man to meet the mortal need. 
She took the tried clay of the common road — 
Clay warm yet with the ancient heat of Earth, 
Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy; 
Tempered the heap with thrill of human tears; 
Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff. 
Into the shape she breathed a flame to light 
That tender, tragic, ever-changing face. 
Here was a man to hold against the world, 
A man to match the mountains and the sea. 

Sprung from the West, 
The strength of virgin forests braced his mind, 
The hush of spacious prairies stilled his soul. 
Up from the log cabin to the Capitol, 
One fire was on his spirit, one resolve — 
To send the keen ax to the root of wrong, 
Clearing a free way for the feet of God. 

So came the Captain with the thinking heart; 
And when the judgment thunders split the house, 
Wrenching the rafters from their ancient rest, 
He held the ridgepole up, and spiked again 
The rafters of the Home. He held his place — 
Held the long purpose like a growing tree — 
Held on through blame and faltered not at praise. 
And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down 
As when a lordly cedar, green with boughs, 
Goes down with a great shout upon the hills, 
And leaves a lonesome place against the sky. 

From Lincoln and Other Poems. McClure, Phillips, and Company. Copyright 
by Mr. Markham. 



59 



"PUNCH" ON ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Tom Taylor 

YOU lay a wreath on murder'd Lincoln's bier, 
You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace, 
Broad for the self-complaisant British sneer, 
His length of shambling limb, his furrow'd face, 

His gaunt, gnarl'd hands, his unkempt, bristling hair, 
His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease, 

His lack of all we prize as debonair, 

Of power or will to shine, of art to please; 

You, whose smart pen back'd up the pencil's laugh, 
Judging each step as though the way were plain; 

Reckless, so it could point its paragraph, 
Of chief's perplexity, or people's pain, — 

Beside this corpse, that bears for winding sheet 
The Stars and Stripes he liv'd to rear anew, 

Between the mourners at the head and feet, 
Say, scurrile jester, is there room for you? 

Yes, he had liv'd to shame me from my sneer, 
To lame my pencil and confute my pen; 

To make me own this hind of princes peer, 
This rail-splitter a true-born king of men. 

The Old World and the New, from sea to sea, 
Utter one voice of sympathy and shame. 

Sore heart, so stopped when it at last beat high! 
Sad life, cut short just as its triumph came! 



60 



THE MAN WHO WEARS THE BUTTON 

John Mellen Thurston 

SOMETIMES in passing along the street I meet a man, who, in the 
left lapel of his coat, wears a little, plain, modest, unassuming 
bronze button. The coat is often old and rusty; the face above it 
seamed and furrowed by the toil and suffering of adverse years; per- 
haps beside it hangs an empty sleeve, or below it stumps a wooden 
peg. But when I meet the man who wears that button I doff my hat 
and stand uncovered in his presence — yea ! to me the very dust his 
weary foot has pressed is holy ground, for I know that man, in the dark 
hour of the nation's peril, bared his breast to the hell of battle to keep 
the flag of our country in the Union sky. 

What mighty men have worn this same bronze button! Grant, 
Sherman, Sheridan, Logan, and a hundred more, whose names are 
written on the title-page of deathless fame. Their glorious victories 
are known of men; the history of their country gives them voice; the 
white light of publicity illuminates them for every eye. But there are 
thousands who, in humbler way, no less deserve applause. How many 
knightliest acts of chivalry were never seen beyond the line or heard 
of above the roar of battle ! 

God bless the men who wear the button. They pinned the stars 
of Union in the azure of our flags with bayonets, and made atonement 
for a nation's sin in blood. They took the negro from the auction- 
block and at the altar of emancipation crowned him — citizen. They 
supplemented "Yankee Doodle" with "Glory Hallelujah," and York- 
town with Appomattox. Their powder woke the morn of universal 
freedom and made the name "American" first in all the earth. To us 
their memory is an inspiration and to the future it is hope. 



From an address delivered at the annual banquet of the Michigan Club at 
Detroit, February 21, 1890. 



61 



THE CHARACTER OF GLADSTONE 

Newell Dwight Hillis 

GREAT as Gladstone was as orator, scholar, and statesman, he 
was greater still as a Christian. With all the enthusiasm of a 
young soldier for some noble general, of a pupil for some artist, he 
poured forth all his gifts and ambitions at the behest of his divine 
Master and Saviour. Going on Sunday to read prayers in the 
church at Hawarden, each morning of the six week days he also made 
his way to the same little church to bow while the rector read daily 
prayers. When prime minister for the last time, he brought an old 
coachman up to London for medical treatment, and having found 
suitable quarters, he charged his physician to send him word should 
a crisis come. The end came at an hour when Mr. Gladstone was 
in an important discussion with Sir William Harcourt. In that hour 
the prime minister dropped everything, and hurrying to another 
part of the city, he lent his old servant comfort as he passed down 
into the dark valley, and this servant died while the prime minister 
of England was praying to the Eternal God, just as, while his own 
son read the solemn prayer, he himself passed on into the realms of 
happiness and immortal peace. 

Noisy to-day are the sceptics, but should we mention the name of 
some one of these doubters best known for talent, and multiply his 
work a thousand-fold, yet, set over against the sublime achievements 
and massive character of Gladstone, he would seem as a mud hut 
against a marble statue. The lesson of this great life is that the most 
splendid gifts, opportunities, and ambitions should be given to Him 
who said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of 
these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me." 



From Great Books as Life Teachers, by Newell Dwight Hillis. Copyright, 
1899, by Fleming H. Revell Company. 



62 



THE SELF-MADE MAN 

Grover Cleveland 

WE have all seen handsome and quite elaborately carved arti- 
cles or trinkets which were made entirely with a pocket-knife. 
As curiosities they challenge our interest because of the ingenuity 
and difficulty of their construction with such a simple tool; but we 
do not regard them as more useful for that reason, nor do we for a 
moment suppose that the pocket-knife was essential to their construc- 
tion, or that their beauty or merit would have been diminished by 
the use of more effective and suitable tools. 

It is well to remember, too, in considering those who succeed not- 
withstanding difficulties, that not all successes, even though so gained, 
are of that useful and elevating kind that should excite our admiration. 
The churlish curmudgeon, who by sharp practices and avaricious deal- 
ing has amassed a fortune, should not be permitted to cajole us by 
boasting of his early privations and sordid self-denial. We are at 
liberty to resent in any case the attempt to cover a multitude of sins 
with the cloak of the self-made man, by playing upon our regard for 
the worth and labour that conquers a useful and honourable career; 
and the successful political hack should not be allowed to distract 
us from a damaged character, by parading his humble origin, his lack 
of early advantages, and the struggles of his boyhood, as independent 
and sufficient proofs that he is entitled to our suffrages. 

The truth is, the merit of the successful man who has struggled with 
difficulties and disadvantages must be judged by the kind of success 
he has achieved, by the use he makes of it, and by its effect upon his 
character and life. 



From The Selj-Made Man. Thomas Y. Crowell Company. 



63 

THE SOURCE OF POWER 

C. Hanford Henderson 

THE world-story after all is nothing more than the story of human 
sentiment. The causes that have been lost and won, the vic- 
tories and defeats, the Reformation and the Renaissance, all the 
great things that have been done, have been first achieved in the 
emotional life, in the human spirit. The immense material resources 
of Asia hurl themselves against Greek sentiment and are shattered. 
The Roman empire, robbed of Roman spirit, falls apart; China, the 
unalterable, the anesthetic, is dying. Napoleon's cynical remark 
that Heaven espoused the cause of the larger army was nowhere 
better disproved than in his own history. ... A handful of colo- 
nial farmers is worth a regiment of Hessians. ... To one man 
comes a supreme passion; the unity of Italy, it may be, the reality 
of the Fatherland, the liberation of Greece; and behold, it is an 
accomplished fact. 

It is impossible to exaggerate the omnipotence of human feeling, 
of human emotion, of human desire. 

The miller looks to his mill-race; the engineer replenishes his coal- 
bin; the sailor regards the quarter of the wind; so must we people 
who have more important concerns on hand look for the carrying 
out of them to the strength and purity of the feelings. As men we 
must see to it that the heart beats high; as educators we must see 
to it that the tide of childish feeling is at the flood; as sociologists 
we must see to it that the people care. As we do this, we are strong; 
as we fail to do it, we are weak. Pagan defeat and superseding came 
when the human heart grew faint. It is the same world, this in which 
we five; the source of its power is still in the round tower of the 
heart. 



From Education and the Higher Life. By permission of, and by special ar- 
rangement with Houghton Mifflin Company. 



64 



THE MAN WHO IS NEEDED 

Elbert Hubbard 

NO man who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where 
many hands were needed, but has been well-nigh appalled at 
times by the imbecility of the average man — the inability or un- 
willingness to concentrate on a thing and do it. Slipshod assistance, 
foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, and half-hearted work seem 
the rule; and no man succeeds, unless by a hook or crook, or threat, 
he forces or bribes other men to assist him: or mayhap, God in His 
goodness performs a miracle and sends him an angel of light for an 
assistant. 

And this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, 
this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold 
and lift, are the things that put pure socialism so far into the future. 
If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the bene- 
fit of their effort is for all? 

My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the 
"boss" is away, as well as when he is at home, and the man, who, 
when given a letter, quietly takes the missive, without asking any 
idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into 
the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets 
"laid off," nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is 
one long anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a 
man asks shall be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can 
afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town, and village — 
in every office, shop, store, and factory. The world cries out for such; 
he is needed and needed badly. 



Extract from an article in the Philistine, for March, 1899. 



65 



NARRATIVE SELECTIONS 



THE STORMING OF THE CASTLE 

Walter Scott 

THE situation of Cedric and of the Black Knight was now truly 
dangerous, and would have been still more so, but for the con- 
stancy of the archers in the barbican, who ceased not to shower then- 
arrows upon the battlements, distracting the attention of those by 
whom they were manned, and thus affording a respite to their two 
chiefs from the 'storm of missiles which must otherwise have over- 
whelmed tbem. But their situation was eminently perilous and was 
becoming more so with every moment. 

"Shame on ye all!" cried De Bracy, to the soldiers around him; "do 
ye call yourselves cross-bowmen, and let these two dogs keep their 
station under the walls of the castle? Heave over the coping stones 
from the battlement, an better may not be. Get the pickaxe and 
levers, and down with that huge pinnacle!" pointing to a heavy piece 
of stone-carved work that projected from the parapet. 

At this moment the besiegers caught sight of the red flag upon the 
angle of the tower which Ulrica had described to Cedric. The good 
yeoman, Locksley, was the first who was aware of it, as he was hasting 
to the outwork, impatient to see the progress of the assault. 

"Saint George!" he cried, "Merry Saint George for England! To 
the charge, bold yeomen ! — why leave ye the good knight and noble 
Cedric to storm the pass alone? — make in, mad priest, show thou 
canst fight for thy rosary — make in, brave yeomen! — the castle is 
ours, we have friends within — see yonder flag; it is the appointed 
signal — Torquilstone is ours! — think of honor, think of spoil — one 
effort and the place is ours." 



From Ivanhoe. 



66 

WHEN THE PLAYERS CAME TO STRATFORD 

John Bennett 

AT early dawn the Oxford carrier had brought the news that the 
players of the Lord High Admiral were coming up to Stratford 
out of London from the south, to play on May-day there; and this 
was what had set the town to buzzing like a swarm. For there were in 
England then but three great companies, and the day on which they 
came into a midland market-town to play was one to mark with red 
and gold upon the calendar of the uneventful year. 

Away by the old mill-bridge there were fishermen angling for dace 
and perch; but when the shout came down the London road, they 
dropped their poles and ran, through the willows and over the gravel, 
splashing and thrashing among the rushes and sandy shallows, not to 
be last when the players came. 

The distant horsemen now [ were coming on, riding in double 
file. They had flung their banners to the breeze, and on the changing 
wind, with the thumping of horses' hoofs, came by snatches the sound 
of a kettledrummer drawing his drumhead tight, and beating as he 
drew, and the muffled blasts of a trumpeter proving his lips. 

Fynes Morrison and Walter Stirley, who had gone to Cowslip Lane 
to meet the march, were running on ahead, and shouting as they 
ran: "There's forty men, and sumpter-mules ! and, oh, the bravest 
banners and attire — and the trumpets are a cloth-yard long! Make 
room for us, make room for us!" 

A bowshot off, the trumpets blew a blast so high, so clear, so keen, 
that it seemed a flame of fire in the air, and as the brassy fanfare died 
away across the roofs of the quiet town, the kettledrums clanged, the 
cymbals clashed, and all the company began to sing the famous old 
song of the hunt: 

"The hunt is up, the hunt is up, 
Sing merrily we, the hunt is up!" 



From Master Skylark. The Century Company. 



67 

MAY DAY IN OLD LONDON 

Alfred No yes 

THWACK ! thwack! One early dawn upon our door 
I heard the bladder of some motley fool 
Bouncing, and all the dusk of London shook 
With bells ! I leapt from bed, — had I forgotten? — 
I flung my casement wide and craned my neck 
Over the painted Mermaid. There he stood, 
His right leg yellow and his left leg blue, 
With jingling cap, a sheep-bell at his tail, 
Wielding his eel-skin bladder, — bang! thwack! bang! 
Catching a comrade's head with the recoil 
And skipping away ! All Bread Street dimly burned 
With litter branches, ferns and hawthorne-clouds; 
For, round Sir Fool, a frolic morrice-troop 
Of players, poets, prentices, mad-cap queans, 
Robins and Marians, coloured like the dawn, 
And sparkling like the green-wood whence they came 
With their fresh boughs all dewy from the dark, 
Clamoured, Come down! Come down, and let us in! 
High over these, I suddenly saw Sir Fool 
Leap to a sign-board, swing to a conduit-head, 
And perch there, gorgeous on the morning sky, 
Tossing his crimson cocks-comb to the blue 
And crowing like Chanticleer, Give them a rouse! 
And as I seized shirt, doublet and trunk-hose, 
I saw the hobby-horse come cantering down, 
A paste-board steed, dappled a rosy white 
Like peach-bloom, bridled with purple, bitted with gold, 
A crimson foot-cloth on his royal flanks, 
And riding him, His Majesty of the May ! 



From The Companion of a Mile in Tales of the Mermaid Tavern. Frederick 
A. Stokes Company. 



THE MURDER OF THOMAS BECKET 

J. A. Froude 

THE archbishop was on the fourth step beyond the central pillar 
ascending into the choir, when the knights came in. A voice 
cried, " Where is the traitor? Where is Thomas Becket?" There 
was silence; such a name could not be acknowledged. "Where is 
the archbishop?" Fitzurse shouted. "I am here," the archbishop re- 
plied, descending the steps. "What do you want with me?" 

They had not meant to kill him — certainly not at that time and 
in that place. There was still time; with a few steps he would have 
been lost in the gloom of the cathedral, and could have concealed 
him in any one of a hundred hiding-places. But he was careless of 
life, and felt that his time was come. He grappled with Tracy and 
flung him to the ground, and then stood with his back against the 
pillar, Edward Grim supporting him. Tracy, rising from the pave- 
ment, struck direct at his head. Grim raised his arm and caught 
the blow. The arm fell broken, and the lone friend found faithful 
sank back disabled against the wall. The sword with its remaining 
force wounded the archbishop above the forehead, and the blood 
trickled down his face. Standing firmly, with his hands clasped, he 
bent his neck for the death-stroke, saying in a low voice, "I am 
prepared to die for Christ and for his Church." These were his last 
words. Tracy again struck him. He fell forward upon his hands 
and knees. In that position Le Breton dealt him a blow which sev- 
ered the scalp from the head and broke the sword against the stone, 
saying, "Take that for my Lord William." 

Such was the murder of Becket, the echoes of which are still heard 
across seven centuries of time, and which, be the final judgment 
upon it what it may, has its place among the most enduring incidents 
in English history. 



09 
THE THREE TROOPERS 

George Walter Thornbury 

INTO the Devil tavern 
Three booted troopers rode, 
From spur to feather spotted and splash'd 

With the mud of a winter road. 
Into each of their cups they dropp'd a crust, 

And stared at the guests with a frown; 
Then drew their swords, and roar'd for a toast, 
" God send this Crum- well-down!" 

The gambler dropp'd his dog's-ear'd cards, 

The waiting women screamed, 
As the light of the fire, like stains of blood, 

On the wild men's sabres gleamed. 
Then into their cups they splash'd the crusts, 

And curs'd the fool of a town, 
And leap'd on the table, and roar'd a toast, 

"God send this Crum-well-down!" 

Till on a sudden fire-bells rang, 

And the troopers sprang to horse; 
And the eldest mutter'd between his teeth, 

Hot curses deep and coarse. 
Into their stirrup cups they flung the crusts, 

And cried as they spurr'd through the town, 
With their keen swords drawn and their pistols cock'd, 

"God send this Crum-well-down !' 

Away they dash'd through Temple Bar, 

Their red cloaks flowing free, 
Their scabbards clash'd, each back-piece shone — 

None lik'd to touch the three. 
The silver cups that held the crusts 

They flung to the startled town, 
Shouting again, with a blaze of swords, 

"God send this Crum-well-down!" 



70 



THE JACOBITE ON TOWER HILL 

George Walter Thornby 

HE tripped up the steps with a bow and a smile, 
Offering snuff to the chaplain the while, 
A rose at his button-hole that afternoon — 
'Twas the tenth of the month, and the month it was June. 

Then shrugging his shoulders he looked at the man 
With the mask and the ax, and a murmuring ran 
Through the crowd, who, below, were all pushing to see 
The jailer kneel down and receiving his fee. 

He looked at the mob, as they roar'd, with a stare, 
And took snuff again with a cynical air. 
"I'm happy to give but a moment's delight, 
To the flower of my country agog for a sight." 

Then he looked at the block, and with scented cravat, 
Dusted room for his neck, gaily doffing his hat, 
Kissed his hand to a lady, bent low to the crowd, 
Then smiling, turn'd round to the headsman and bow'd. 

"God save King James!" he cried bravely and shrill, 
And the cry reached the houses at foot of the hill, 
"My friend, with the ax, a votre service ?' he said, 
And ran his white thumb 'long the edge of the blade. 

When the multitude hiss'd he stood firm as a rock, 
Then kneeling, laid down his gay head on the block; 
He kissed a white rose, — in a moment 'twas red, 
With the life of the bravest of any that bled. 



71 

BREAKING THE NEWS 
William Makepeace Thackeray 

ON the afternoon of the 14th day of June, 1727, two horsemen 
might have been perceived galloping along the road from Chel- 
sea to Richmond. The foremost, cased in the jack-boots of the period, 
was a broad-faced, jolly-looking and very corpulent cavalier; but by 
the manner in which he urged his horse, you might see that he was a 
bold as well as a skillful rider. Indeed no man loved sport better; 
and in the hunting fields of Norfolk no squire rode more boldly after 
the fox, or cheered Ringwood or Sweettips more lustily than he who 
now thundered over the Richmond road. 

He speedily reached Richmond Lodge, and asked to see the owner 
of the mansion. The mistress of the house and her ladies, to whom our 
friend was admitted, said he could not be introduced to the master, 
however pressing the business might be. The master was asleep after 
his dinner; he always slept after his dinner; and woe be to the person 
who interrupted him! Nevertheless, our stout friend of the jack- 
boots put the affrighted ladies aside, opened the forbidden door of the 
bedroom, wherein upon the bed lay a little gentleman; and here the 
eager messenger knelt down in his jack-boots. 

He on the bed started up; and with many oaths and a strong German 
accent asked who was there, and who dared to disturb him? 

'T am Sir Robert Walpole," said the messenger. The awakened 
sleeper hated Sir Robert Walpole. "I have the honor to announce to 
your majesty that your royal father, King George I., died at Osna- 
burg on Saturday last, the 10th instant." 

"Dat is one big lie!" roared out his sacred Majesty King George II. 
But Sir Robert Walpole stated the fact, and from that day until 
three-and-thirty years after, George, the second of the name, ruled 
over England. 



From The Four Georges. 



72 
PARTRIDGE AT THE PLAYHOUSE 

Henry Fielding 

AS soon as the play, which was Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, 
began, Partridge was all attention, nor did he break silence 
until the entrance of the Ghost; upon which he asked Jones, " What 
man that was in the strange dress." 

Jones answered, "That is the Ghost." 

To which Partridge replied with a smile: "Persuade me to that, 
sir, if you can. Though I can't say I ever actually saw a ghost in 
my life, yet I am certain I should know one if I saw him better than 
that comes to." 

In this mistake he was suffered to continue until the scene between 
the Ghost and Hamlet, when Partridge gave that credit to Mr. 
Garrick, which he had denied to Jones. "Oh, la, sir," said he, "I 
perceive now it is what you. told me. I am not afraid of anything, 
for I know it is but a play; and yet if I was frightened, I am not the 
only person. If that little man there upon the stage is not frightened, 
I never saw any man frightened in my life." 

When the Ghost made his next appearance Partridge cried out: 
"There, sir, now: what say you now? Is he frightened, or no? As 
much frightened as you think me; and to be sure, nobody can help 
some fears. I would not be in so bad a condition as what's-his-name, 
Squire Hamlet, is there, for all the world." 

At the end, Jones asked which of the players he had liked best. 
To this he answered, "The King, without doubt." 

"Indeed, Mr. Partridge," says Mrs. Miller, "you are not of the 
same opinion as the town; for they are all agreed that Hamlet is 
acted by the best player who was ever on the stage." 

"He the best player!" cries Partridge, "why, I could act as well 
as he myself. I am sure if I had seen a Ghost, I should have looked 
in the very same manner and done just as he did. I know you are 
only joking with me. I have seen acting before in the country; and 
the King for my money; he speaks all his words distinctly, half as 
loud again as the other. Anybody may see he is an actor." 

From Tom Jones. 



73 
THE DEATH OF THE DAUPHIN 

Alphonse Datjdet 

THE little Dauphin is ill; the little Dauphin is dying. In all the 
churches of the kingdom the Holy Sacrament remains exposed 
day and night, and great tapers burn, for the recovery of the royal 
child. The streets of the old capital are sad and silent; the bells 
ring no more; the carriages slacken their pace. 

On the bed embroidered with lace the little Dauphin, whiter than 
the pillows on which he is extended, lies with closed eyes. They think 
that he is asleep; but no, the little Dauphin is not asleep. He turns 
towards his mother, and seeing her tears, he asks: — 

"Madame la Reine, why do you weep? Do you really believe that 
I am going to die?" 

The Queen tries to answer. Sobs prevent her from speaking. 

"Do not weep, Madame la Reine. You forget that I am the 
Dauphin, and that Dauphins cannot die thus." 

At that moment the chaplain approaches the little Dauphin, and 
pointing to the crucifix, talks to him in low tones. The little Dauphin 
listens with astonished air; then, suddenly interrupting him, — "I 
understand well what you are saying, Monsieur l'Abbe; but still, 
couldn't my little friend Beppo die in my place, if I gave him plenty 
of money?" 

The chaplain continues to talk to him in low tones, and the little 
Dauphin looks more and more astonished. 

When the chaplain has finished, the little Dauphin resumes, with 
a heavy sigh: — "What you have said is all very sad, Monsieur 
l'Abbe; but one thing consoles me, and that is that up there, in the 
Paradise of the stars, I shall still be Dauphin. I know that the good 
God is my cousin, and cannot fail to treat me according to my rank." 

A third time the chaplain bends over the little Dauphin and talks 
to him in low tones. In the midst of his discourse the royal child 
interrupts him angrily. "Why, then," he cries, "to be Dauphin is 
nothing at all!" And refusing to listen to anything more, the little 
Dauphin turns towards the wall and weeps bitterly. 

From Elementary English Composition by W. F. Webster. By permission of, 
and by special arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Company. 



74 

VICTOR OF MARENGO 

Anonymous 

NAPOLEON was sitting in his tent. Before him lay the map of 
Italy. He took four pins, stuck them up, measured, moved 
the pins, and measured again. "Now," said he, "that is right, I will 
capture him there." And the finger of the child of destiny pointed to 
Marengo. But God thwarted Napoleon's schemes and the well- 
planned victory of Napoleon became a terrible defeat. 

In the corps was a drummer boy, a gamin whom Desaix had 
picked up in the streets of Paris. As the column halted, Napoleon 
shouted to him: "Beat a retreat." The boy did not stir. "Gamin, 
beat a retreat!" The boy grasped his drumsticks, stepped forward 
and said: "0 sire, I don't know how. Desaix never taught me 
that. But I can beat a charge. Oh ! I can beat a charge that would 
make^the dead fall in line. I beat that charge at the Pyramids 
once, and I beat it at Mt. Tabor, and I beat it again at the Bridge 
of Lodi, and, oh! may I beat it here?" 

Napoleon turned to Desaix: "We are beaten; what shall we do?" 
"Do? Beat them! There is time to win a victory yet. Up! gamin, 
the charge! Beat the old charge of Mt. Tabor and Lodi!" A moment 
later the corps, following the sword gleam of Desaix, and keeping 
step to the furious roll of the gamin's drum, swept down on the host 
of Austria. 

Desaix fell at the first volley, but the line never faltered. And, as 
the smoke cleared away, the gamin was seen in front of the line, 
marching right on and still beating the furious charge. 

I To-day men point to Marengo with wonderment. They laud the 
power and foresight that so skillfully planned the battle; but they 
forget that Napoleon failed, and that a gamin of Paris put to shame 
the child of destiny. 



See Napoleon and His Marshals by J. T. Headley, published by Baker 
and Scribner, New York City, 1846. 



75 



SIDNEY CARTON'S PROPHECY 

Charles Dickens 

THEY said of him about the city that night, that it was the peace- 
fullest man's face ever beheld there. If he had given any utter- 
ance to his thoughts, and they were prophetic, they would have been 
these: 

I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, 
prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no 
more. I see her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. 
I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful 
to all men in his healing office, and at peace. 

I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of 
their descendants, generations hence: I see that child who lay upon 
her bosom and who bore my name, a man, winning his way up in that 
path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well that 
my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots 
I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, foremost of just judges and 
honored men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know 
and golden hair, to this place ■ — then fair to look upon, with not a 
trace of this day's disfigurement — and I hear him tell the child my 
story, with a tender and faltering voice. 

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it 
is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known. 



From A Tale of Two Cities. 



76 



THE REVOLUTIONARY ALARM 

George Bancroft 

DARKNESS closed upon the country and upon the town, but it 
was no night for sleep. Heralds on swift relays of horses 
transmitted the war message from hand to hand, till village repeated 
it to village, the sea to the backwoods, the plains to the highlands, 
and it was never suffered to droop till it had been borne North and 
South and East and West, throughout the land. It spread over the 
bays that receive the Saco and the Penobscot; its loud reveille broke 
the rest of the trappers of New Hampshire, and ringing like bugle 
notes from peak to peak, overleapt the Green Mountains, swept on- 
ward to. Montreal, and descended the ocean river till the responses 
were echoed from the cliffs at Quebec. The hills along the Hudson 
told to one another the tale. As the summons hurried to the South, 
it was one day at New York, in one more at Philadelphia, the next 
it lighted a watch-fire at Baltimore, then it waked an answer at 
Annapolis. Crossing the Potomac near Mount Vernon, it was sent 
forward, without a halt, to Williamsburg. It traversed the Dismal 
Swamp to Nansemond, along the route of the first emigrants to 
North Carolina. It moved onward and still onward, through bound- 
less groves of evergreen, to Newbern and to Wilmington. 

With one impulse the Colonies sprung to arms; with one spirit 
they pledged themselves to each other, "to be ready for the extreme 
event." With one heart the continent cried, "Liberty or Death!" 



77 



THE BLACK HORSE AND HIS RIDER 

George Lippard 

IT was the 7th of October, 1777. . . . The two flags, this of the 
stars, that of the red cross, tossed amid the smoke of battle, . . 
and the earth throbbed with the pulsations of a mighty heart. 

Suddenly, Gates and his officers were startled. Along the height 
on which they stood came a rider on a black horse, rushing towards 
the distant battle . . . and lo! he is gone; gone through those 
clouds, while his shout echoes over the plain. 

Thus it was all the day long. Wherever that black horse and his 
rider went, there followed victory. At last, towards the setting of the 
sun, the crisis of the conflict came. That fortress yonder, on Bemis' 
Heights, must be won, or the American cause is lost ! That cliff is too 
steep — that death is too certain. The officers cannot persuade the 
men to advance. But look yonder! In this moment when all is dis- 
may and horror, here crashing on, comes the black horse and his rider. 
. . . And now look! Now hold your breath, as that black steed 
crashes up that steep cliff. That steed quivers! He falls! No! No! 
Still on, still up the cliff, still on towards the fortress. The rider turns 
his face and shouts, "Come on, men of Quebec! come on!" That call 
is needless. Already the bold riflemen are on the rock. . . . And 
there in the gate of the fortress, as the smoke clears away, stands the 
black horse and his rider. That steed falls dead, pierced by a hundred 
balls; but his rider . . . lifts up his voice and shouts afar to 
Horatio Gates waiting yonder in his tent, " Saratoga is won !" As that 
cry goes up to heaven, he falls with his leg shattered by a cannon ball. 

Who was the rider of the black horse? Do you not guess his name? 
Then bend down and gaze on that shattered limb; and you will see 
that it bears the mark of a former wound. That wound was received 
in the storming of Quebec. The rider of the black horse was Benedict 
Arnold. 



78 



THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE AT CORUNNA 

Charles Wolfe 

NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note, 
As his corpse to the rampart we hurried; 
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot 
O'er the grave where our hero we buried. 

We buried him darkly at dead of night, 

The sods with our bayonets turning; 
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light 

And the lantern dimly burning. 

Few and short were they prayers we said, 

And we spoke not a word of sorrow; 
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead, 

And we bitterly thought of the morrow. 

We thought, as we hollow'd his narrow bed, 

And smoothed down his lonely pillow, 
That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, 

And we far away on the billow! 

But half of our heavy task was done 

When the clock struck the hour for retiring; 

And we heard the distant and random gun 
That the foe was sullenly firing. 

Slowly and sadly we laid him down, 

From the field of his fame fresh and gory; 
We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone, 

But we left him alone with his glory. 



79 

THE DUEL BETWEEN THE MASTER AND MR. 
HENRY 

Robert Louis Stevenson 

"TJTENRY DURIE," said the Master, "two words before I begin. 

■*> A You are a fencer, you can hold a foil; you little know what 
a change it makes to hold a sword! And by that I know you are to 
fall. But see how strong is my situation! If you fall, I shift out of 
this country to where my money is before me. If I fall, where are 
you? My father, your wife who is in love with me, as you very well 
know — your child even who prefers me to yourself; — how will 
those avenge me! Had you thought of that, dear Henry?" He 
looked at his brother with a smile; then made a fencing-room salute. 

Never a word said Mr. Henry, but saluted, too, and the swords 
rang together. 

I am no judge of the play; my head, besides, was gone with cold, 
and fear, and horror; but it seems that Mr. Henry took and kept 
the upper hand from the engagement, crowding in upon his foe with 
a contained and growing fury. Nearer and nearer he crept upon 
the man, till of a sudden, the Master leaped back with a little sobbing 
oath; and I believe the movement brought the light once more 
against his eyes. To it they went again, on the fresh ground; but 
now methought closer, Mr. Henry pressing more outrageously, the 
Master beyond doubt, with shaken confidence. For it is beyond 
doubt he now recognized himself for lost, and had some taste of the 
cold agony of fear; or he had never attempted the foul stroke. I 
cannot say I followed it; my untrained eye was never quick enough 
to seize details, but it appears he caught his brother's blade with 
his left hand, a practice not permitted. Certainly Mr. Henry only 
saved himself by leaping on one side; as certainly the Master lunging 
in the air stumbled on his knee, and before he could move, the sword 
was through his body. * 

I cried out with a stifled scream, and ran in; but the body was al- 
ready fallen to the ground, where it writhed a moment like a trodden 
worm, and then lay motionless. 

From The Master of Ballantrae. Charles Scribner's Sons. . 



80 

THE ENGLISH LARK 

Charles Reade 

NEAR the gold mines of Australia, by a little squatter's house that 
was thatched and whitewashed in English fashion, a group of 
rough English miners had come together to listen in that far-away 
country to the singing of the English lark. 

Like most singers, he kept them waiting a bit. But at last, just 
at noon, when the mistress of the house had warranted him to sing, 
the little feathered exile began as it were to tune his pipes. The 
savage men gathered around the cage that moment, and amidst a dead 
stillness the bird uttered some very uncertain chirps; but after a while, 
he seemed to revive his memories and call his ancient cadences back 
to him. And then the same sun that had warmed his little heart at 
home came glowing down on him here, and he gave music back for it 
more and more, till at last, amidst breathless silence and glistening 
eyes of the rough diggers hanging on his voice, outburst in that dis- 
tant land his English song, but no note was changed in this immortal 
song. It swelled his little throat and gushed from him with thrilling 
force and plenty; and every time he checked his song to think of its 
theme, the green meadows, the quiet stealing streams, the clover he 
first soared from, and the spring he sang so well, a loud sigh from 
many a rough bosom, many a wild and wicked heart told how tight the 
listeners had held their breath to hear him. And so for a moment 
or two, years of vice rolled away like a dark cloud from the mem- 
ory, and the past shone out in the song-shine; they came back bright 
as the immortal notes that lighted them, those faded pictures and 
those fleeted days: the cottage, the old mother's tears when he 
left her without one grain of sorrow; the village church and its simple 
chimes; the clover field hard by, in which he lay and gamboled while 
the lark praised God overhead; the chubby playmates, and the sweet, 
sweet hours of youth and innocence and home. 



From It is Never too Late to Mend. 



81 

HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM 
GHENT TO AIX 

Robert Browning 

I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; 
I galloped; Dirk galloped; we galloped all three; 
"Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew; 
"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through; 
Behind shut the postern; the lights sank to rest; 
And into the midnight we galloped abreast. 
'Twas moonset at starting; but when we drew near 
Lokern, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear; 
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see ; 
At Duffield, 'twas morning as plain as could be; 
At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun, 
And against him the cattle stood black every one. 
By Hasselt, Dirk groaned; and cried Joris, "Stay spur! 
Your Roos galloped bravely; the fault's not in her." 
So, we were left galloping, Joris and I, 
Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky; 
Till over by Dalhem, a dome-spire sprang white, 
And " Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in sight!" 
"How they'll greet us!" — and all in a moment his roan 
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone. 
Then I cast loose my buff coat, each holster let fall, 
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, 
Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good, 
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. 
And all I remember is — friends flocking around 
As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground; 
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine, 
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine, 
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) 
Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent. 



From Poetical Works. The Macmillan Company. 



82 



THE RETURN OF RIP VAN WINKLE 

Washington Irving 

A GENERAL shout burst from the bystanders — "A tory! a 
spy ! a refugee ! hustle him ! away with him !" It was with great 
difficulty that the self-important man in the cocked hat restored order; 
and, having assumed a tenfold austerity of brow, demanded again 
of the unknown culprit, what he came for, and whom he was seeking. 
The poor man humbly assured him that he meant no harm, but merely 
came there in search of some of his neighbors, who used to keep about 
the tavern. 

"Well — who are they? — name them." 

Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, "Where's Nicholas 
Vedder?" 

There was a silence for a little while, when an old man replied in a 
thin, piping voice, "Nicholas Vedder! Why, he is dead and gone 
these eighteen years! There was a wooden tombstone in the church- 
yard that used to tell all about him, but that's rotten and gone, too." 

"Where's Brom Dutcher?" 

"Oh, he went off to the wars, too; was a great militia general, and 
is now in Congress." 

Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad changes in his home 
and friends, and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer 
puzzled him, too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of 
matters which he could not understand; war — Congress — Stony 
Point — he had no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried 
out in despair, "Does nobody know Rip Van Winkle?" 

"Oh, Rip Van Winkle!" exclaimed two or three, "Oh, to be sure! 
That's Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning against the tree." 



From Rip Van Winkle in The Sketch Book. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 



83 



THE TEA KETTLE AND THE CRICKET 

Charles Dickens 

IT'S a dark night," sang the kettle, "and the rotten leaves are 
lying by the way, and above all is mist and darkness, and below 
all is mire and clay, and there's hoar-frost on the finger-post, and thaw 
upon the track; and the ice isn't water, and the water isn't free; and 
you couldn't say that anything is what it ought to be." 

And here, if you like, if the cricket did not chime in with chirrup, 
chirrup, chirrup of such magnitude, by way of chorus, with a voice 
so astoundingly disproportionate to its size, as compared with the 
kettle (size, you couldn't see it !) — that if it had then and there burst 
itself, and chirruped its little body into fifty pieces, it would have 
seemed a natural and inevitable consequence. 

The kettle had had the last of its solo performances. Yet they went 
very well together, the cricket and the kettle. There was all the 
excitement of a race about it. Chirp, chirp, chirp! cricket a mile 
ahead. Hum, hum, hum-m-m! kettle making play in the distance 
like a great top. Chirp, chirp, chirp ! cricket round the corner. Hum, 
hum, hum-m-m! kettle sticking to him in his own way; no idea of 
giving in. Chirp, chirp, chirp, cricket fresher than ever. Hum, hum, 
hum-m-m ! kettle slow and steady. Chirp, chirp, chirp ! cricket going 
in to finish him. Hum, hum, hum ! kettle not to be finished. 

Until at last they got so jumbled together, in the hurry-scurry, 
helter-skelter of the match, that whether the kettle chirped and the 
cricket hummed, or whether the cricket chirped and the kettle 
hummed, or they both chirped and both hummed, it would have 
taken a clearer head than yours or mine to have decided. 



From The Cricket on the Hearth. 



84 

THE FEZZIWIG BALL 

Charles Dickens 

"T TO ; ho, my boys!" cried Fezziwig. "No more work to-night. 
A -*- Christmas eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the 
shutters up, before a man can say Jack Robinson! Clear away, my 
lads, and let's have lots of room here!" 

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away, 
or couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It 
was done in a minute. In came a fiddler with a music-book, and 
went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned 
like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substan- 
tial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. 
In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In came 
all the young men and women employed in the business. In came 
the housemaid, with her cousin the baker. In came the cook, with 
her brother's particular friend, the milkman. In they all came one 
after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awk- 
wardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and 
every how. Away they all went, twenty couple at once; hands half 
round and back again the other way; down the middle and up again; 
old top-couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top-couple 
starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top-couple at last, 
and not a bottom one to help them. When this result was brought 
about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, 
"Well done!" and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of 
porter especially provided for the purpose. 

When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr. 
and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side of the door, 
and, shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went 
out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. 



From The Christmas Carol. 



85 



ROMANCE 

William E. Henley 

TALK of pluck," pursued the Sailor, 
Set at euchre on his elbow, 
"I was on the wharf at Charleston, 
Just ashore from off the runner. 

"It was grey and dirty weather, 
And I heard a drum go rolling, 
Rub-a-dubbing in the distance, 
Awful dour-like and defiant. 

"In and out among the cotton, 
Mud and chains, and stores, and anchors, 
Tramped a squad of battered scarecrows — 
Poor old Dixie's bottom dollar. 

"Some had shoes, but all had rifles, 
Them that wasn't bald was beardless, 
And the drum was rolling Dixie, 
And they stepped to it like men, sir! 

"Rags and tatters, belts and bayonets, 
On they swung, the drum a-rolling, 
Mum and sour. It looked like fighting, 
And they meant it too, by thunder." 



From In Hospital. T. B. Mosher. 



86 
THE PRIVATE OF THE BUFFS 

Sir Francis H. Doyle 

LAST night, among his fellow roughs, 
He jested, quaffed and swore; 
A drunken private of the Buffs, 

Who never looked before. 
To-day, beneath the foeman's frown, 

He stands in Elgin's place, 
Ambassador from Britain's crown 
And type of all her race. 

Far Kentish hop-fields round him seemed, 

Like dreams, to come and go; 
Bright leagues of cherry blossom gleamed, 

One sheet of living snow; 
The smoke, above his father's door, 

In gray soft eddyings hung : 
Must he then watch it rise no more, 

Doomed by himself, so young? 

Yes, honor calls ! — with strength like steel 

He put the vision by. 
Let dusky Indians whine and kneel; 

An English lad must die. 
And thus, with eyes that would not shrink, 

With knee to man unbent, 
Unfaltering on its dreadful brink, 

To his red grave he went. 

Vain, mightiest fleets of iron framed; 

Vain, those all-shattering guns; 
Unless proud England keep, untamed, 

The strong heart of her sons. 
So, let his name through Europe ring — 

A man of mean estate. 
Who died, as firm as Sparta's king 

Because his soul was great. 



87 



THE BATTLE OF SANTIAGO 

Henry Cabot Lodge 

THE American people will always remember that hot summer 
morning and the anxiety that overspread the land. They will 
always see the American ships rolling lazily on the long seas, and the 
sailors just going to Sunday inspection. Then comes the long, thin 
trail of smoke drawing nearer the harbor's mouth. The ships see it, 
and we can hear the cheers ring out, for the enemy is coming, and the 
American sailor rejoices mightily to know that the battle is set. 
There is no need of signals, no need of orders. The patient, long- 
watching admiral has given direction for every chance that may 
befall. Every ship is in place; every ship rushes forward, closing in 
upon the enemy, fiercely pouring shells from broadside and turret. 
On they go, driving through the water, firing steadily and ever get- 
ting closer, and presently the Spanish cruisers, helpless, burning, 
twisted wrecks of iron, are piled along the shore, and we see the 
younger officers and the men of their victorious ships periling their 
lives to save their beaten enemies. We see Wainwright on the Glou- 
cester as eager in rescue as he was swift in fight. We watch Evans 
as he hands back the sword to the wounded Eulate, and then writes 
in his report: "I cannot express my admiration for my magnificent 
crew. So long as the enemy showed his flag, they fought like 
American seamen; but when the flag came down, they were as tender 
and gentle as American women." They all stand out to us, these 
gallant figures, from admiral to seamen, with an intense human in- 
terest, fearless in fight, brave and merciful in the hour of victory. 



From The War with Spain. Harper and Brothers. 



88 

THE CHEERFUL LOCKSMITH 

Charles Dickens 

FROM the workshop of the Golden Key there issued forth a 
tinkling sound, so merry and good-humored that it suggested 
the idea of some one working blithely, and made quite pleasant music. 
Tink, tink, tink — clear as a silver bell, and audible at every pause 
of the streets' harsher noises, as though it said, "I don't care; nothing 
puts me out; I am resolved to be happy. " 

Women scolded, children squalled, heavy carts went rumbling by, 
horrible cries proceeded from the lungs of hawkers; still it struck in 
again, no higher, no lower, no louder, no softer; not thrusting itself 
on people's notice a bit the more for having been outdone by louder 
sounds — tink, tink, tink, tink, tink. 

It was the perfect embodiment of the still, small voice, free from all 
cold, hoarseness, huskiness, or unhealthiness of any kind. Foot- 
passengers slackened their pace, and were disposed to linger near it; 
neighbors who had got up splenetic that morning, felt good-humor 
stealing on them as they heard it, and by degrees became quite spright- 
ly; mothers danced their babes to its ringing; — still the same magical 
tink, tink, tink came gaily from the workshop of the Golden Key. 

Who but the locksmith could have made such music? A gleam of 
sun, shining through the dark workshop with a broad patch of light, 
fell full upon him, as though attracted by his sunny heart. There 
he stood working at his anvil, his face radiant with exercise and glad- 
ness, his sleeves turned up, his wig pushed off his shining forehead — 
the easiest, freeest, happiest man in all the world. 

Tink, tink, tink. No man who hammered on at a dull, monotonous 
duty could have brought such cheerful notes from steel and iron; 
none but a chirping, healthy, honest-hearted fellow, who made the 
best of everything and felt kindly towards everybody, could have 
done it for an instant. He might have been a coppersmith, and still 
been musical. If he had sat in a jolting wagon, full of rods of iron, 
it seemed as if he would have brought some harmony out of it. 

From Barnaby Rudge. 



89 

THE RETURN OF THE REGISTRAR 

Arthur Quiller-Couch ("Q") 

THE Registrar's mother lived in the fishing village, two miles 
down the coombe. Her cottage leant back against the cliff so 
closely, that the boys, as they followed the path above, could toss 
tabs of turf down her chimney; and this was her chief annoyance. 

Now, it was close upon the dinner-hour, and she stood in her 
kitchen beside a pot of stew that simmered over the wreck-wood fire. 

Suddenly a great clump of earth and grass came bouncing down the 
chimney, striking from side to side, and soused into the pot, scattering 
the hot stew Over the hearthstone and splashing her from head to 
foot. Quick as a thought, she caught up a besom and rushed around 
the corner of the cottage. "You stinking young adders!" she began. 

A big man stood on the slope above her. "Mother, cuff my head, 
that's a dear. I couldn't help doing it." 

It was the elderly Registrar. His hat, collar, tie, and waistcoat 
were awry; his boots were slung on the walking-stick over his shoulder; 
stuck in his mouth and lit was a twist of root-fibre, such as country 
boys use for lack of cigars, and he himself had used, forty years before. 

The old woman turned to an ash color, leant on her besom and 
gasped: — "William Henry!" 

"I'm not drunk, mother; been a Band of Hope these dozen years." 
He stepped down the slope to her and bent his head low. "Box my 
ears, mother, quick! You used to have a wonderful gift o' cuffin'." 

"William Henry, I'm bound to do it or die." 

"Then be quick about it." 

Half-laughing, half-sobbing, she caught him a feeble cuff, and the 
next instant held him close to her old breast. The Registrar disengaged 
himself after a minute, brushed his eyes, straightened his hat, picked 
up her besom and offered her his arm. They passed into the cottage 
together. 



From When the Sap Rose in The Delectable Dutchy. Charles Scribner's Sons. 



90 
THE VICTOR 

Percy MacKaye 

ON a battlefield of northern France the sun had just set. After 
hours of bloody fighting, the enemy had retreated. 

Seated on a round, stumplike object, one lonely figure, huge and 
forlorn, loomed in the crimson glow. 

He was dressed in gorgeous regalia, almost unscorched by the grime 
of battle. His big shoulders drooped. In one hand he held a little 
rod of dark wood. He stared at it dumbly. 

Suddenly out of the dusk a detachment of French troopers ap- 
proached and surrounded him. 

"Surrender, or be shot!" 

The figure stirred with slow dignity, but deigned no reply. Instead, 
he raised the little rod to his bearded face and kissed it. 

Struck with curiosity, the Frenchmen — who were peasants — ex- 
amined their prisoner more closely: Scarlet, blue, gold, orange — a 
superb uniform; the breast and shoulders gleaming with decorations. 

Here was no common soldier in gray field-clothes. Unmistakably 
he had the air of a commander — a dreamy pathos, a disdainful 
scorn of their presence. Their Gallic imagination took fire. They 
whispered together. Whom could they have captured:* a general? — 
a prince? 

He carried no weapons, but — that little black rod: he had kissed 
it ! Might it* be — ? (They had heard of scepters.) Might this really be 
— a king? — or the war-lord of some imperial principality, scornful of 
flight, grandly stoical in defeat? Their peasant hearts fluttered. 

"Who are you?" their leader asked in German. 

"Who I am!" retorted the huge figure with melancholy disdain. 
"Who I am! I am the Imperial Band-master." 

Throned on a drum and sceptered with a baton, clothed in the gor- 
geous habiliments of pageantry, the Imperial Band-master — to-day 
as ever — is overlord of the battle fields of Europe; though Czar and 
Kaiser faU, his scepter remains unchallenged. . . For his domain, 
as old and elemental as man, is the empire of Art. 

From A Potential Substitute for War in The North American Review, May, 1915. 



91 



FORENSIC AND DIDACTIC 



THE NAMES OF NAVAL HEROES 
Robert Louis Stevenson 

MOST men of high destinies have high-sounding names. Pym 
and Habakkuk may do pretty well, but they must not think 
to cope with the Cromwells and Isaiahs. And you could not find 
a better case in point than that of the English Admirals. Drake and 
Rooke and Hawke are picked names for men of execution. Frobisher, 
Rodney, Boscawen, Foul- Weather, Jack Byron, are all good to catch 
the eye in a page of a naval history. Cloudesley Shovel is a mouthful 
of quaint and sounding syllables. Benbow has a bulldog quality 
that suits the man's character, and it takes us back to those English 
archers who were his true comrades for plainness, tenacity, and 
pluck. Raleigh is spirited and martial, and signifies an act of bold 
conduct in the field. It is impossible to judge of Blake or Nelson, 
no names current among men being worthy of such heroes. But 
still it is odd enough, and very appropriate in this connection, that 
the latter was greatly taken with his Sicilian title. "The significa- 
tion, perhaps, pleased him," says Southey; "Duke of Thunder was 
what in Dahomey would have been called a strong name; it was to 
a sailor's taste, and certainly to no man could it be more applicable." 
Admiral in itself is one of the most satisfactory of distinctions; it 
has a noble sound and a very proud history; and Columbus thought 
so highly of it that he enjoined his heirs to sign themselves by that 
title as long as the house should last. 



From The English Admirals in Virginibus Puerisque. Charles Scribner's Sons. 



92 

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON 

Hamilton Wright Mabie 

THE charm of Stratford-on-Avon is twofold; it is enfolded by 
some of the loveliest and most characteristic English scenery, 
and it is the home of the greatest English literary tradition. Lying 
in the very heart of the country, it seems to be guarded as a place 
sacred to the memory of the foremost man of expression who has yet 
appeared among the English-speaking peoples. It has become a town 
of some magnitude, with a prosperous trade in malt and corn; but its 
importance is due wholly to the fact that it is the custodian of Shake- 
speare's birthplace, of the school in which he was trained, of the house 
in which he courted Anne Hathaway, of the ground on which he built 
his home, and of the church in which he lies buried. The place is full 
of Shakespearean associations; of localities which he knew in the years 
of his dawning intelligence, and in those later years when he returned 
to take his place as a householder and citizen; the old churches with 
which as a child he was familiar are still standing, substantially as 
they stood at the end of the sixteenth century; the Grammar School 
still teaches boys of to-day within the walls that listened to the same 
recitations three hundred years ago; the houses of his children and 
friends are, in several instances, still secure from the destructive hand 
of time ; there are still wide stretches of sloping hillside shaded by the 
ancient forest of Arden; there are quaint half-timbered fronts upon 
which he must have looked; the "bank where the wild thyme blows" 
is still to be found by those who know the foot-path to Shottery and 
the road over the hill; the Warwickshire landscape has the same ripe 
and tender beauty which Shakespeare knew; and the Avon flows as 
in the days when he heard the nightingales singing in the level meadows 
across the river from the church, or slipped silently in his punt through 
the mist which softly veils it on summer nights. 



From William Shakespeare, Poet, Dramatist, attd Man. The Macmillan Com- 
pany. 



93 
SHAKESPEARE'S EDUCATION 

Hamilton Wright Mabie 

SHAKESPEARE has sometimes been represented as a boy of 
obscure parentage and vulgar surroundings; he was, as a matter 
of fact, the son of a man of energy and substance, the foremost citizen 
of Stratford. He has often been represented as wholly lacking educa- 
tional opportunities; he was, as a matter of fact, especially fortunate 
in educational opportunities of the most fertilizing and stimulating 
kind. The singular misconception which has identified education ex- 
clusively with formal academic training has made it possible to hold 
men of the genius of Shakespeare, Burns, and Lincoln before the 
world as exceptions to the law that no art can be mastered save through 
a thorough educational process. If Burns and Lincoln were not so 
near us, the authorship of "Tam o' Shanter" and the Gettysburg 
address would have been challenged on the ground of inadequate 
preparation for such masterpieces of expression. 

These three masters of speech were exceptionally well educated for 
their art, for no man becomes an artist except by the way of appren- 
ticeship; but their education was individual rather than formal, and 
liberating rather than disciplinary. The two poets were saturated in 
the most sensitive period in the unfolding of the imagination with the 
very genius of the people among whom they were to work and whose 
deepest instincts they were to interpret. Their supreme good fortune 
lay in the fact that they were educated through the imagination rather 
than through the memory and the rationalizing faculties. A man 
sometimes gets this kind of education in the schools, but oftener he 
misses it. He is always supremely fortunate if he gets it all all. 

But Shakespeare was by no means lacking in educational opportuni- 
ties of a formal kind. The Grammar School, in which Cicero and 
Virgil have been taught in unbroken succession since Shakespeare's 
time, was a free school, taking boys of the neighbourhood from seven 
years upwards, and keeping them on the benches with generous 
disregard of hours. There is abundant evidence that Shakespeare 
knew other languages and literatures than his own. 

From William Shakespeare, Poet, Dramatist, and Man. The Macmillan Com- 
pany. 



94 



REPLY TO MR. CORRY 

Henry Grattan 

HAS the gentleman done? Has he completely done? He was un- 
parliamentary from the beginning to the end of his speech. 
There was scarce a word that he uttered that was not a violation of 
the privileges of the House; but I did not call him to order. Why? 
Because the limited talents of some men render it impossible for them 
to be severe without being unparliamentary; but, before I sit down, I 
shall show him how to be severe and parliamentary at the same time. 

The right honorable gentleman has called me an "unimpeached 
traitor." I ask, why not traitor unqualified by an epithet? I will tell 
him; it was because he dare not. It was the act of a coward who raises 
his arm to strike, but has not the courage to give the blow. I will 
not call him villain, because it is unparliamentary, and he is a privy 
counselor. I will not call him fool, because he happens to be Chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer; but I say he is one who has abused the privi- 
leges of Parliament and freedom of debate, to the uttering of language 
which, if spoken out of the House, I should answer with a blow. 

I have returned to refute a libel, as false as it is malicious, given to 
the public under the appellation of a report of the committee of the 
Lords. Here I stand, ready for impeachment or trial. I dare accusa- 
tion. I defy the honorable gentlemen; I defy the government; I defy 
the whole phalanx; let them come forth. I tell the ministers I will 
neither give them quarter nor take it. I am here to lay the shattered 
remains of my constitution on the floor of this house, in defense of 
the liberties of my country. 



95 



REPLY TO WALPOLE 

William Pitt 

THE atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honorable 
gentleman has, with such spirit and decency, charged upon me, 
I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny. 

But youth is not my only crime; I am accused of acting a theatrical 
part. A theatrical part may either imply some peculiarity of gesture, 
or a dissimulation of my real sentiments and an adoption of the opin- 
ions and language of another man. In the first sense, the charge is 
too trifling to be confuted, and deserves only to be mentioned that it 
may be despised. 

But, if any man shall, by charging me with theatrical behavior, 
imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a 
calumniator and a villain. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple 
trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dignity intrench 
themselves, nor shall anything but age restrain my resentment; age, 
— which always brings one privilege, that of being insolent and super- 
cilious without punishment. 

But with regard to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion 
that, if I had acted a borrowed part, I should have avoided their 
censure; the heat that offended them was the ardor of conviction and 
that zeal for the service of my country which neither hope nor fear 
shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned while my 
liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery. I will 
exert my endeavors, at whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor and 
drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect him in his villainies, 
and whoever may partake of his plunder. 



96 

TO THE WHITE MAN 

Edward Everett 

WHITE man, there is an eternal war between me and thee! 
I quit not the land of my fathers, but with my life. In 
those woods, where I bent my youthful bow, I will still hunt the deer; 
over yonder waters I will still glide, unrestrained, in my bark canoe. 
By those dashing water-falls I will still lay up my winter's store of 
food; on these fertile meadows I will still plant my corn. 

Stranger! the land is mine. I understand not these paper rights. 
I gave not my consent, when, as thou sayest, these broad regions 
were purchased, for a few baubles, of my fathers. They could sell 
what was theirs; they could sell no more. How could my father sell 
that which the Great Spirit sent me into the world to live upon? 
They knew not what they did. 

The stranger came, a timid suppliant, and asked to lie down on 
the red man's bear-skin, and warm himself at the red man's fire, 
and have a little piece of land to raise corn for his woman and children ; 
and now he is become strong, and mighty, and bold, and spreads out 
his parchment over the whole, and says, "It is mine." 

Stranger, there is not room for us both. The Great Spirit has 
not made us to live together. There is poison in the white man's 
cup; the white man's dog barks at the red man's heels. 

If I should leave the land of my fathers, whither shall I fly? Shall 
I go to the south, and dwell among the graves of the Pequots? Shall 
I wander to the west? — the fierce Mohawk — the man eater — 
is my foe. Shall I fly to the east? — ■ the great water is before me. 
No, stranger; here I have lived, and here will I die; and if here 
thou abidest, there is eternal war between me and thee. 



97 

THE INDIANS 

Charles Sprague 

NOT many generations ago, where you now sit, encircled with all 
that exalts and embellishes civilized life, the rank thistle 
nodded in the wind, and the wild fox dug his hole unscared. Here 
lived and loved another race of beings. Beneath the same sun that 
rolls over your head, the Indian hunter pursued the panting deer; 
gazing on the same moon that smiles for you, the Indian lover wooed 
his dusky mate. 

Here the wigwam blaze beamed on the tender and helpless, and the 
council-fire glared on the wise and daring. Now, they dipped their 
noble limbs in yon sedgy lakes, and now, they paddled the light 
canoe along yon rocky shores. Here they warred; the echoing 
whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death-song, all were here; 
and when the tiger-strife was over, here curled the smoke of peace. 

Here, too, they worshipped; and from many a dark bosom went 
up a fervent prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not written his laws 
for them on tables of stone, but he had traced them on the tables of 
their hearts. The poor child of Nature knew not the God of Revela- 
tion, but the God of the universe he acknowledged in everything 
around. 

And all this has passed away. Across the ocean came a pilgrim 
bark, bearing the seeds of life and death. The former were sown for 
you; the latter sprang up in the path of the simple native. 

Here and there, a stricken few remain; but how unlike their bold, 
untamable progenitors. As a race, they have withered from the land. 
Their arrows are broken, their springs are dried up, their cabins are 
in. the dust. Their council-fire has long since gone out on the shore, 
and their war-cry is fast fading to the untrodden west. Slowly and 
sadly they climb the distant mountains, and read their doom in the 
setting sun. 



MACGREGORS DEFENSE 

Walter Scott 

CAN I forget that I have been branded as an outlaw, stigmatized 
as a traitor, a price set on my head as if I had been a wolf, my 
family treated as the dam and cubs of the hill fox, whom all may tor- 
ment, vilify, degrade, and insult; the very name, which came to me 
from a long and noble line of martial ancestors, denounced as if it 
were a spell to conjure up the devil with? And they shall find that the 
name they have dared to prescribe, that the name of MacGregor, is 
a spell to raise the wild devil withal. They shall hear of my vengeance, 
that would scorn to listen to the story of my wrongs. The miserable 
Highland drover, bankrupt, barefooted, stripped of all, dishonored, 
and hunted down, because the avarice of others grasped at more 
than that poor all could pay, shall burst on them in an awful change! 

The land might be at peace and in law for us, did they allow us 
the blessings of peaceful law. But we have been a persecuted people, 
and if persecution maketh wise men mad, what must it do to men like 
us, living as our fathers did a thousand years since, and possessing 
scarce more lights than they did? Can we view the bloody edicts 
against us, their hanging, heading, hounding, and hunting down an 
ancient and honorable name, as deserving better treatment than that 
which enemies give to enemies? Here I stand, have been in twenty 
frays, and never hurt man but when I was in hot blood, and yet, they 
would betray me, and hang me, like a masterless dog, at the gate of 
any great man that has an ill-will at me. 

But the heather that I have trod upon when living, must bloom 
over me when I am dead. My heart would sink, and my arm would 
shrink and wither, like fern in the frost, were I to lose sight of my 
native hills. Nor has the world a scene that would console me for 
the loss of these rocks and cairns, wild as they are, that you see 
around us. 



From Rob Roy. 



99 



THE AMERICAN FISHERIES 

Edmund Burke 

AS to the wealth which the colonies have drawn from the sea by 
their fisheries, you had all that matter fully opened at your bar. 
And pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it? Pass by the other 
parts, and look at the manner in which the people of New England 
have of late carried on the whale fishery. While we follow them among 
the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the 
deepest frozen recesses of Hudson Bay and Davis Straits, while we 
are looking for them beneath the Arctic Circle, we hear that they have 
pierced into the opposite region of polar cold, that they are at the 
antipodes, and engaged under the frozen Serpent of the South. Falk- 
land Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the 
grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting place in the 
progress of their victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more 
discouraging to them than the accumulated winter of both the poles. 
We know that while some of them draw the line and strike the har- 
poon on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude and pursue their 
gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No sea but what is vexed 
by their fisheries. No climate that is not witness to their toils. Neither 
the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dex- 
terous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this most 
perilous mode of hardy industry to the extent to which it has been 
pushed by this recent people — a people who are still, as it were, but 
in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. 



100 



AGAINST THE WAR WITH AMERICA 

William Pitt 

MY lords, you cannot, — I venture to say it — you cannot conquer 
America. Your armies in the last war effected everything that 
could be effected; and what was it? It cost a numerous army, under 
the command of a most able general, now a noble lord in this house, a 
long and laborious campaign, to expel five thousand Frenchmen from 
French America. My lords, you cannot conquer America. What is 
your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we 
know that in three campaigns we have done nothing and suffered 
much. As to conquest, therefore, my lords, it is impossible. — You 
may swell every expense, and every effort, still more extravagant- 
ly; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or borrow; 
traffic and barter with every little pitiful German prince that sells 
and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign prince; your 
efforts are forever vain and impotent — doubly so from this mer- 
cenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates to an incurable 
resentment the minds of your enemies, to overrun them with the mer- 
cenary sons of rapine and plunder; devoting them and their pos- 
sessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty! If I were an American, 
as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my 
country, I never would lay down my arms — never! 



November 18, 1777. 



101 



TO THE CONVENTION OF DELEGATES 

Patrick Henry 

THREE millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, 
and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible 
by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we 
shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides 
over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends to fight 
our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is 
to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no elec- 
tion. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire 
from the contest. There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery! 
Our chains are forged; their clanking may be heard on the plains of 
Boston! The war is inevitable — and let it come! ! I repeat it, sir, 
let it come! 

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, 
"Peace! Peace!" — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. 
The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the 
clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! 
Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What 
would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased 
at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I 
know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me lib- 
erty, or give me death! 



March 23, 1775. 



102 



PAUL REVERFS RIDE 

George William Curtis 

IT was a brilliant April night. The winter had been unusually mild 
and the spring very forward. The hills were already green; the 
early grain waved in the fields, and the air was sweet with blossoming 
orchards. Under the cloudless moon, the soldiers silently marched, 
and Paul Revere swiftly rode, galloping through Medford and West 
Cambridge, rousing every house as he went, spurring for Lexington 
and Hancock and Adams, and evading the British patrols, who had 
been sent out to stop the news. 

Stop the news ! Already the village church bells were beginning to 
ring the alarm, as the pulpits beneath them had been ringing for many 
a year. In the awakening houses lights flashed from window to 
window. Drums beat faintly far away and on every side. Signal 
guns flashed and echoed. The watchdogs barked; the cocks crew. 

Stop the news! Stop the sunrise! The murmuring night trembled 
with the summons so earnestly expected, so dreaded, so desired. And 
as, long ago, the voice rang out at midnight along the Syrian shore, 
wailing that great Pan was dead, but in the same moment the choiring 
angels whispered, "Glory to God in the highest, for Christ is born," 
so, if the stern alarm of that April night seemed to many a wistful 
and loyal heart to portend the passing glory of British dominion and 
the tragical chance of war, it whispered to them with prophetic 
inspiration, "Good will to men; America is born!" 



From Orations and Addresses. Harper and Brothers. 



103 



ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY 

George Washington 

THE time is now near at hand, which must probably determine 
whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves, whether their 
houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves 
to be consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human 
efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now de- 
pend, under God, on the courage and the conduct of this army. 
Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of a brave 
resistance or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to 
resolve to conquer or to die. 

Our own, our country's honor, calls upon us for a vigorous and 
manly exertion. If we now shamefully fail, we shall become in- 
famous to the whole world. The eyes of all our countrymen are now 
upon us, and we shaU have their blessings and praises if happily we 
are the instruments of saving them from the tyranny meditated 
against them. Let us, therefore, animate and encourage each other, 
and show the whole world that a freeman contending for liberty on 
his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth. 

Liberty, property, life, and honor are all at stake. Upon your 
courage and conduct rest the hopes of our bleeding and insulted 
country. Our wives, children, and parents expect safety from us 
only; and they have every reason to believe that Heaven will crown 
with success so just a cause. 

The enemy will endeavor to intimidate by show and appearance; 
but remember that they have been repulsed on various occasions by 
a few brave Americans. Their cause is bad — their men are conscious 
of it. If they are opposed with firmness and coolness on their first 
onset, with our advantage of works and knowledge of the ground, 
the victory is most assuredly ours. 



104 



FAREWELL TO HIS COUNTRYMEN 

George Washington 

IN offering to you, my Countrymen, these counsels of an old and 
affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and 
lasting impression I could wish, — that they will control the usual cur- 
rent of the passions, or prevent our Nation from running the course 
which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even 
flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, 
some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate 
the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischief of foreign in- 
trigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this 
hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by 
which they have been dictated. 

Though in reviewing the incidents of my Administration, I am un- 
conscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible to my 
defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many 
errors. — Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to 
avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. — I shall also carry 
with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with 
indulgence; and that after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its 
service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will 
be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of 
rest. 

Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by 
that fervent love towards it, which is so natural to a man who views 
in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several genera- 
tions, I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat, in which I 
promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of par- 
taking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good 
laws under a free Government, — the ever favorite object of my heart, 
and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and 
dangers. 



105 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 

Daniel Webster 

WE come, as Americans, to mark a spot which must forever be 
dear to us and our posterity. We wish that whosoever, in 
all coming time, shall turn his eye hither, may behold that the place is 
not undistinguished where the first great battle of the Revolution was 
fought. We wish that this structure may proclaim the magnitude 
and importance of that event to every class and every age. We wish 
that infancy may learn the purpose of its erection from maternal 
lips, and that weary and withered age may behold it, and be solaced 
by the recollections which it suggests. We wish that labor may 
look up here, and be proud, in the midst of its toil. We wish that, 
in those days of disaster, which, as they come on all nations, must 
be expected to come upon us also, desponding patriotism may turn its 
eyes hitherward, and be assured that the foundations of our national 
power are still strong. We wish that this column, rising towards 
heaven among the pointed spires of so many temples dedicated to 
God, may contribute also to produce, in all minds, a pious feeling 
of dependence and gratitude. We wish, finally, that the last object 
on the sight of him who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden 
him who revisits it, may be something which shall remind him of the 
liberty and the glory of his country. Let it rise, let it rise! till it 
meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild 
it, and parting day linger and play on its summit. 



From the Bunker Hill Oration, 1825. 



106 



THE SURVIVORS OF BUNKER HILL 

Daniel Webster 

VENERABLE men! You have come down to us from a former 
generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your 
lives, that you might behold this joyous day. You are now where 
you stood fifty years ago, this very hour, with your brothers and 
your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your country. 
Behold how altered! The same heavens are indeed over your 
heads; the same ocean rolls at your feet; but all else how changed! 
You hear now no roar of hostile cannon; you see no mixed volumes 
of smoke and flame' rising from burning Charlestown. The ground 
strewed with the dead and the dying; the impetuous charge; the 
steady and successful repulse; the loud call to repeated assault; the 
summoning of all that is manly to repeated resistance; a thousand 
bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror 
there may be in war and death ; — all these you have witnessed, but 
you witness them no more. All is peace. The heights of yonder 
metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you then saw filled with wives 
and children and countrymen in distress and terror, and looking with 
unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, have presented you 
to-day with the sight of its whole happy population, come out to 
welcome and greet you with a universal jubilee. . . . All is peace; 
and God has granted you this sight of your country's happiness, 
ere you slumber in the grave. He has allowed you to behold and 
to partake the reward of your patriotic toils; and he has allowed 
us, your sons and countrymen, to meet you here, and in the name 
of the present generation, in the name of your country, in the name 
of liberty, to thank you! 



From the Bunker Hill Oration, 1825. 



107 



AN APPEAL IN BEHALF OF LIBERTY AND UNION 

Daniel Webster 

I PROFESS, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view 
the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preser- 
vation of our Federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our safety 
at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. 

While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects 
spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not 
to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain 
may not rise ! God grant that on my vision never may be opened 
what lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the 
last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken 
and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dis- 
severed, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or 
drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and 
lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, 
now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high ad- 
vanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not 
a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing for its 
motto, no such miserable interrogatory as, "What is all this worth?" 
nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first, and union 
afterward"; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living 
light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over 
the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other senti- 
ment, dear to every true American heart, — Liberty and Union, now 
and forever, one and inseparable ! 



From the Second Speech on Foote's Resolution, delivered in the United States 
Senate, January 26, 1830. 



108 

A RUB-A-DUB AGITATION 

George William Curtis 

SO long as people said: "Oh, yes, slavery is a very bad thing, but 
there is nothing to be done about it, you know," the Southern 
Policy smiled politely and worked diligently at its web in which the 
country was entangled. But when a few other people said: "Yes, 
slavery is a bad thing, and will destroy the nation if the nation does 
not destroy it," Mr. Calhoun knew that the open battle was at hand. 
He sprang to his feet. "What does it mean?" asked he, the represen- 
tative man of the South, of Mr. Webster, the representative man of 
the North. "Nothing, nothing; a rub-a-dub agitation," replied Mr. 
Webster. A rub-a-dub agitation! Oh, yes, so it was. It was the 
beating of the roll call at midnight. The camp slept no more; and 
morning breaks at last in the storm of a war that shakes the world. 

Yes, it was a rub-a-dub agitation. It was a drumbeat that echoed 
over every mountain and penetrated every valley and roused the 
heart of the land to throb in unison. To that rub-a-dub a million men 
appeared at Lincoln's call, and millions of women supported them. 
To that rub-a-dub the brave and beautiful and beloved went smiling 
to their graves. To that rub-a-dub Grant forced his fiery way through 
the Wilderness; following its roll, Sherman marched to the sea, and 
Sheridan scoured the Shenandoah. The rattling shots of the Kear- 
sarge sinking the Alabama were only the far-off echoes of that terrible 
drum-beat. To that rub-a-dub the walls of the rebellion and of slavery 
crumbled at last and forever, as the walls of Jericho before the horns of 
Israel. That tremendous rub-a-dub, played by the hearts and hands 
of a great people, fills the land to-day with the celestial music of liberty, 
and to that people, still thrilling to that music, we appeal! 



From Orations and Addresses. Harper and Brothers. 



109 



THE DUTY OF THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR 

George William Curtis 

SCHOLARS, you would like to loiter in the pleasant paths of study. 
Every man loves his ease, loves to please his taste. But into how 
many homes along this lovely valley came the news of Lexington and 
Bunker Hill, eighty years ago, and young men like us, studious, fond 
of leisure, young lovers, young husbands, young brothers and sons, 
knew that they must forsake the wooded hill-side, the river meadows, 
golden with harvest, the twilight walk along the river, the summer 
Sunday in the old church, parents, wife, and child, and go away to 
uncertain war. Putnam heard the call at his plow, and turned to go, 
without waiting. Wooster heard it, and obeyed. 

Not less lovely in those days was this peaceful valley, not less soft 
this summer air. Life was dear, and love was beautiful to those young 
men as it is to us who stand upon their graves. But, because they were 
so dear and beautiful, those men went out bravely to fight for them, 
and fell. 

Gentlemen, while we read history we make history. Because our 
fathers fought in this great cause, we must not hope to escape fighting. 
Because, two thousand years ago, Leonidas stood against Xerxes, 
we must not suppose that Xerxes was slain, nor, thank God, that 
Leonidas is not immortal. Every great crisis of human history is a 
Pass of Thermopylae, and there is always a Leonidas and his three 
hundred to die in it, if they can not conquer. And, so long as Liberty 
has one martyr, so long as one drop of blood is poured out for her, so 
long from that single drop of bloody sweat of the agony of humanity 
shall spring hosts as countless as the forest leaves, and mighty as the 
sea. 



From Orations and Addresses. Harper and Brothers. 



110 



ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE GETTYS- 
BURG NATIONAL CEMETERY 

Abraham Lincoln 

FOURSCORE and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on 
this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated 
to the proposition that all men are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, 
or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We 
are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate 
a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave 
their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and 
proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — 
we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who 
struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or 
detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, 
but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, 
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who 
fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be 
here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these 
honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they 
gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that 
these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, 
shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people 
by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. 



Ill 

THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC 

Chauncey Mitchell Depew 

TO the Army of the Potomac belongs the unique distinction of 
being its own hero. It fought more battles and lost more in 
killed and wounded than all the others; it shed its blood like water 
to teach incompetent officers the art of war, and political tacticians 
the folly of their plans; but it was always the same invincible and 
undismayed Army of the Potomac. Loyal ever to its mission and 
to discipline, the only sound it gave in protest of the murderous folly 
of cabinets and generals was the crackling of the bones as cannon- 
balls ploughed through its decimated ranks. It suffered for four 
years under unparalleled abuse, and was encouraged by little praise, 
but never murmured. 

When Lincoln and Grant and Sherman, firmly holding behind them 
the vengeful passions of the Civil War, put out their victorious arms 
to the South and said, "We are brethren," this generous and patriotic 
army joined in the glad acclaim and welcome with their fervent 
"Amen." Twenty-two years have come and gone since you marched 
down Pennyslvania Avenue past the people's representatives, to 
whom you and your Western comrades there committed the govern- 
ment you had saved and the liberties you had redeemed; past Ameri- 
cans from whose citizenship you had wiped with your blood the only 
stain, and made it the proudest of earthly titles. Call the roll. The 
names reverberate from earth to heaven. "All present or accounted 
for." Here the living answer for the dead; there the spirits of the 
dead answer for the living. As God musters them out on earth, He 
enrolls them above; and as the Republic marches down the ages, 
accumulating power and splendor with each succeeding century, the 
van will be led by the Army of the Potomac. 



From an oration delivered at the reunion of the Army of the Potomac at Saratoga, 
June 22, 1887. 



112 

A VISION OF WAR 

Robert Green Ingersoll 

THE past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great 
struggle for national life. We see all the dead whose dust we 
have covered with flowers. We lose sight of them no more. . . . We 
are with them when they enlist in the great army of freedom . . . 

We see them all as they march proudly away under the flaunting 
flags, keeping time to the grand, wild music of war — ■. . . through 
the towns and across the prairies — down to the fields of glory, to do 
and to die for the eternal right. 

We go with them, one and all. We are by their side on all th3 gory 
fields — in all the hospitals of pain — on all the weary marches. We 
stand guard with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. 
We are with them in ravines running with blood in the furrows 
of old fields. We are with them between contending hosts, un- 
able to move, wild with thirst, the life blood ebbing slowly away 
among the withered leaves. We see them pierced by balls and torn 
with shells, in the trenches, by forts, and in the whirlwind of the 
charge, where men become iron, with nerves of steel. 

We are at home when the news comes that they are dead. We see 
the maiden in the shadow of her first sorrow. We see the silvered head 
of the old man bowed with the last grief. 

These heroes are dead. They died for liberty — they died for us. 
They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the 
flag they rendered stainless. . . . Earth may run red with other 
wars — they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of con- 
flict, they found the serenity of death. I have one sentiment for 
soldiers living and dead: cheers for the living; tears for the dead. 



From Prose-Poems and Selections from the Writings of Robert G. Ingersoll. 
C. P. Farrell, New York. 



113 



THE NEW SOUTH 

Henry W. Grady 

LET me picture to you the footsore Confederate soldier, as, but- 
toning up in his faded gray jacket his parole, he turned his face 
southward from Appomattox in April, 1865. Think of him as he sur- 
renders his gun, wrings the hands of his comrades in silence, and, 
lifting his tear-stained and pallid face for the last time to the graves 
that dot old Virginia hills, pulls his gray cap over his brow and begins 
the slow and painful journey. 

What does he find — let me ask you — what does he find when 
he reaches the home he left so prosperous and beautiful? He finds 
his house in ruins, his farm devastated, his slaves free, his stock 
killed, his barns empty, his trade destroyed, his money worthless, 
his social system, feudal in its magnificence, swept away, his people 
without law or legal status, his comrades slain, and the burdens of others 
heavy on his shoulders. What does he do, this hero in gray with a 
heart of gold? Does he sit down in sullenness and despair? Not 
for a day. The soldier stepped from the trenches into the furrow; 
horses that had charged Federal guns marched before the plow; and 
fields that ran red with human blood in April were green with the 
harvest in June. The new South is enamored with her work. Her 
soul is stirred with the breath of a new life. The light of a grander 
day is falling fair on her face. She is thrilling with the consciousness 
of growing power and prosperity. As she stands upright, full-statured 
and equal among the people of the earth, breathing the keen air and 
looking out upon the expanded horizon, she understands that her 
emancipation came because through the inscrutable wisdom of God 
her honest purpose was crossed, and her brave armies were beaten. 



114 



A PLEA FOR FORCE 

John Mellen Thurston 

MR. PRESIDENT, there is only one action possible. We cannot 
intervene and save Cuba without the exercise of force, and 
force means war; war means blood. But it will be God's force. When 
has a battle for humanity and liberty ever been won except by force? 
What barricade of wrong, injustice, and oppression has ever been 
carried except by force? 

Force compelled the signature of unwilling royalty to the great 
Magna Charta; force put life into the Declaration of Independence 
and made effective the Emancipation Proclamation; force beat with 
naked hands upon the iron gateway of the Bastile and made reprisal 
in one awful hour for centuries of kingly crime; force waved the flag 
of revolution over Bunker Hill and marked the snows of Valley Forge 
with blood-stained feet; force held the broken line at Shiloh, climbed 
the flame-swept hill at Chattanooga, and stormed the clouds on 
Lookout Heights ; force marched with Sherman to the sea, rode with 
Sheridan in the valley of the Shenandoah, and gave Grant victory 
at Appomattox; force saved the Union, kept the stars in the flag, 
made "niggers" men. The time for God's force has come again. 
Let the impassioned lips of American patriots once more take up 
the song: 

"In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, 
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me. 
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, 
For God is marching on." 



From a speech delivered in the Senate of the United States, March 24, li 



115 



CUBAN WARFARE 

Lemuel E. Quigg 

MR. SPEAKER, I hardly think it worth while to discuss the 
moot question of whether the conditions that exist in Cuba are 
or are not a state of war; and of even less importance is the quaint 
contention that belligerent rights should be denied the Cuban people 
because they are not fighting according to the rules of warfare laid 
down by professors of international law. 

How are they fighting? Why, sir, they are fighting in a way that 
has enabled them within a single year to extend their authority from 
a single spot in a single province all over the island until only three 
or four seaport cities remain to the Spanish crown. 

The way to fight, I take it, is to win. And that art, sir, the Cuban 
soldiery has learned in a degree that commands the admiration of 
all the world. This may not be war, sir; but I give you my word it 
is no summer's holiday. 

It has been said that the forces fight in disorder. So did the farmer 
lads at Bunker Hill. It has been said that the Cuban government 
frequently moves. So did the Continental Congress. They say the 
Cuban armies are little bands of guerillas. So were Marion's men. 
So was Sumpter's brigade. So, indeed, were all the armies of the 
Revolution, the total number of whom is not half the force that is 
now engaged for Cuba free. I say, too, gentlemen, that it is not for 
us, the sons of the ragged and forlorn miserables who froze at Valley 
Forge and starved in the swamps of the Carolinas, but out of whose 
glorious aspiration and noble daring free government was born, to 
sneer at the distresses through which the men of Cuba, brave with 
the same hope, fierce with the same passion, are fighting their hard 
way to freedom! 



116 



OUR COUNTRY 

Benjamin Harrison 

THESE banners with which you have covered your walls, these 
patriotic inscriptions must come down, and the way of commerce 
and trade be resumed again. I will ask you to carry these banners 
that now hang on the wall into your homes, into the public schools 
of your city, into all your great institutions where children are gath- 
ered, and to drape them there, that the eyes of the young and of the 
old may look upon that flag as one of the familiar adornments of the 
American home. 

Have we not learned that not stocks nor bonds nor stately houses 
nor lands nor the product of the mill, is our country? It is the spiritual 
thought that is in our minds. Our country is the flag and what it 
stands for — its glorious history. It is the fireside and the home. It 
is the high thoughts that are in our hearts, born of the inspiration 
which comes with the stories of our fathers, the martyrs to liberty. 
It is the graveyards into which our careful country has gathered the 
unconscious dust of those who have died for its defense. It is these 
things that we love and call our country, rather than things, however 
rated, that can be touched or handled. 

To elevate the morals of our people; to hold up the law as that 
sacred thing, which, like the ark of God of old, cannot be touched by 
irreverent hands; to frown upon every attempt to displace its suprem- 
acy; to unite our people in all that makes home pure and honorable, 
as well as to give our energies to the material advancement of the 
country: these services we may render every day; and out of this 
great demonstration do we not all feel like reconsecrating ourselves 
to the love and service of our country? 



117 

HOLIDAY OBSERVANCE 

Grover Cleveland 

THE commemoration of the day on which American independence 
was born has been allowed to lose much of its significance as a 
reminder of the Providential favor and of the inflexible patriotism of 
the fathers of the republic, and has nearly degenerated into a revel of 
senseless noise and aimless explosion, leaving in its train far more mis- 
hap and accident than lessons of good citizenship and pride of country. 
The observance of Thanksgiving Day is kept alive through its annual 
designation by Federal and State authority. But it is worth while to 
inquire whether its original meaning, as a day of united praise and 
gratitude to God for the blessings bestowed upon us as a people and as 
individuals, is not smothered in feasting and social indulgence. We, 
in common with Christian nations everywhere, celebrate Christmas, 
but how much less as a day commemorating the birth of the Redeemer 
of mankind than as a day of hilarity and the exchange of gifts. 

I am an advocate of every kind of sane, decent, social enjoyment, 
and all sorts of recreation. But, nevertheless, I feel that the allowance 
of an incongruous possession by them of our commemorative days 
is symptomatic of a popular tendency by no means reassuring. 

A prominent and widely-read newspaper contains a communication 
in regard to the observance of the birthday of the late President Mc- 
Kinley. Its tone plainly indicates that the patriotic society, which 
has for its primary purpose the promotion of this particular commemo- 
ration, recognizes the need of a revival of interest in the observance 
of all other memorial days. 

It is comforting to know that, in the midst of the prevailing apathy, 
there are those among us who have determined that the memory of 
the events and lives we should commemorate shall not be smothered 
in the dust and smoke of sordidness, nor crushed out by ruthless 
materialism. 



From Holiday Observance. Henry Altemus Company. 



118 



THE IDEAL REPUBLIC 

William Jennings Bryan 

I CAN conceive of a national destiny surpassing the glories of the 
present and the past — a destiny which meets the responsibilities 
of to-day and measures up to the possibilities of the future. 

Behold a republic, resting securely upon the foundation stones 
quarried by revolutionary patriots from the mountain of eternal 
truth — a republic applying in practice and proclaiming to the world 
the self-evident proposition that all men are created equal; that they 
are endowed with inalienable rights; that governments are instituted 
among men to secure these rights; that governments derive their 
just powers from the consent of the governed. 

Behold a republic in which civil and religious liberty stimulate all 
to earnest endeavour, and in which the law restrains every hand up- 
lifted for a neighbour's injury — a republic in which every citizen is 
a sovereign, but in which no one cares to wear a crown. 

Behold a republic standing erect, while empires all around are 
bowed beneath the weight of their own armaments — a republic 
whose flag is loved, while other flags are only feared. 

Behold a republic increasing in population, in wealth, in strength 
and influence, solving the problems of civilization and hastening the 
coming of a universal brotherhood — a republic which shakes thrones 
and dissolves aristocracies by its silent example, and gives light and 
protection to those who sit in darkness. 

Behold a republic gradually but surely becoming the supreme moral 
factor in the world's progress and the accepted arbiter of the world's 
disputes — a republic whose history, like the path of the just, is "as 
the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." 



Indianapolis, 1900. 



119 

ON IMMORTALITY 

William Jennings Bryan 

IF the Father deigns to touch with divine power the cold and pulse- 
less heart of the buried acorn and to make it burst forth from its 
prison walls, will he leave neglected in the earth the soul of man, made 
in the image of his Creator? If he stoops to give to the rose bush, 
whose withered blossoms float upon the autumn breeze, the sweet 
assurance of another springtime, will he refuse the words of hope 
to the sons of men when the frosts of winter come? If matter, mute 
and inanimate, though changed by the forces of nature into a multi- 
tude of forms, can never die, will the imperial spirit of man suffer 
annihilation when it has paid a brief visit like a royal guest to this 
tenement of clay? No, I am as sure we live again as I am sure that 
we live to-day. 

In Cairo I secured a few grains of wheat that had slumbered for 
more than thirty centuries in an Egyptian tomb. As I looked at 
them, this thought came into my mind: If one of those grains had been 
planted on the banks of the Nile the year after it grew, and all its 
lineal descendants had been planted and replanted from that time 
until now, its progeny would to-day be sufficiently numerous to feed 
the teeming millions of the world. 

There is in the grain of wheat an invisible something which has 
power to discard the body that we see, and from earth and air fashion 
a new body so much like the old one that we cannot tell the one from 
the other. If this invisible germ of life in the grain of wheat can thus 
pass unimpaired through three thousand resurrections, I shall not 
doubt that my soul has power to clothe itself with a body suited to its 
new existence when this earthly frame has crumbled into dust. 



From The Prince of Peace, a lecture delivered at many Chautauquas and re- 
ligious gatherings, beginning in 1904. 



120 

IN PRAISE OF VENICE 

F. Hopkinson Smith 

THE Venice that you see in the sunlight of a summer's day — 
the Venice that bewilders with her glory when you land at her 
water gate; that delights with her color when you idle along the 
Riva; that intoxicates with her music as you lie in your gondola 
adrift on the bosom of some breathless lagoon — the Venice of mould- 
stained palace, quaint caffe and arching bridge; of fragrant incense, 
cool, dim- lighted church, and noiseless priest; of strong men and 
graceful women — the Venice of light and life, of sea and sky, and 
melody — no pen can tell this story. The pencil and palette must 
lend their touch when one would picture the wide sweep of her piazzas, 
the abandon of her gardens, the charm of her canal and street life, 
the happy indolence of her people, the faded sumptuousness of her 
homes. 

If I have given to Venice a prominent place among the cities of 
the earth, it is because in this selfish, materialistic, money-getting 
age it is a joy to live, if only for a day, where a song is more prized 
than a soldo; where the poorest pauper laughingly shares his scanty 
crust; where to be kind to a child is a habit, to be neglectful of old 
age a shame; a city the relics of whose past are the lessons of our 
future; whose every canvas, stone, and bronze bear witness to a 
grandeur, luxury, and taste that took a thousand years of energy 
to perfect, and will take a thousand years of neglect to destroy. 

To every one of my art-loving countrymen this city should be a 
Mecca; to know her thoroughly is to know all the beauty and romance 
of five centuries. 



From Prefatory in Gondola Days. By permission of, and by special arrangement 
with Houghton Mifflin Company. 



121 



SUN DIALS 
Charles Lamb 

WHAT a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous embowelments 
of lead and brass, its pert or solemn dulness of communica- 
tion, compared with the simple altar-like structure and silent heart- 
language of the old dial! It stood as the garden god of Christian 
gardens. Why is it almost everywhere vanished? If its business use 
be superseded by more elaborate inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, 
might have pleaded for its continuance. It spoke of moderate labours, 
of pleasures not protracted after sunset, of temperance, and good 
hours. It was the primitive clock, the horologe of the first world. 
Adam could scarce have missed it in Paradise. It was the measure 
appropriate for sweet plants and flowers to spring by, for birds to ap- 
portion their silver warblings by, for flocks to pasture and to be led 
to fold by. The shepherd carved it out quaintly in the sun; and, turn- 
ing philosopher by the very occupation, provided it with mottoes 
more touching than tombstones. It was a pretty device of a gardener, 
recorded by Marvell, who, in the days of artificial gardening, made a 
dial out of herbs and flowers. I must quote his verses, for they are 
full, as all his serious poetry was, of a witty delicacy. 

How well the skillful gardener drew, 
Of flowers and herbs, this dial new, 
Where, from above, the milder sun 
Does through a fragrant zodiac run; 
And, as it works, the industrious bee 
Computes its time as well as we. 
How could such sweet and wholesome hours 
Be reckon'd but with herbs and flowers. 



From the Essays of Elia. 



122 

EULOGY ON THE DOG 

George A. Vest 

GENTLEMEN of the Jury— The best friend a man has in this 
world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son 
or daughter that he has reared with loving care, may prove ungrateful. 
Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with 
our happiness and our good name, may become traitors to their faith. 
The money that a man has he may lose. It flies away from him, per- 
haps when he needs it most. A man's reputation may be sacrificed 
in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to 
fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us, may be the 
first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon 
our heads. The one absolute, unselfish friend that man can have in 
this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never 
proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog. 

Gentlemen of the Jury, a man's dog stands by him in prosperity and 
in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, 
where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he 
can be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food 
to offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with 
the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master 
as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. 
When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant 
in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens. If fortune 
drives the master forth an outcast in the world, friendless and home- 
less, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompany- 
ing him to guard against danger, to fight against the enemies, and 
when the last scene of all comes, and death takes the master in 
its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter 
if all other friends pursue their way, there by his graveside will the 
noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad but open 
in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even to death. 



123 

BESIDE THE GLIMMERGLASS 

Morgan Dix 

ON a Saturday afternoon, in the midsummer of last year, I found 
myself by chance on the southern shore of Otsego Lake, looking 
northward on a scene which for quiet and soothing beauty can hardly 
be surpassed. Before me lay the mirror of the Glimmerglass ; warm 
lights threw a flush upon the skies; the day was going away; the 
omens of the evening were already in the clouds; a breeze, scarcely 
strong enough to ruffle the water, came from the western hills; the 
woods were reflected in their native colors along the silent shore. But 
below was more than what met the eye. Through and under this 
exterior beauty, voices could be heard, speaking of the mystery of the 
natural world. Here are depths which no man has yet sounded, not 
philosopher nor poet; here is a mystery which thus far defies our search 
— whence, and how, came this wondrous, beautiful world; when it 
was made; and why it was made "subject to vanity"; how long, be- 
fore man appeared on the earth, his destiny and doom were fore- 
shadowed there; how he, in his fortunes, is linked to what he calls 
"nature"; by what bond and to what extent it is so related to him as 
to sympathize with him in his sorrows, and partake of his hope — 
what poet, what philosopher, what theologian has told us the whole 
truth on these points? Of them might one readily be led to muse, 
while looking upon the lake, confronted by forests and hills, and the 
perspective of point, bluff, and mountain; for at such times and in 
such places, men become aware of some unspeakable strangeness in 
their life, and, keeping silence before mysterious and dimly indicated 
presences, they know that it must be possible to draw its hidden mean- 
ing from God's world, from hill and plain, from deep, still waters and 
shadowy woods, from the currents of the evening breeze and the out- 
stretched shadows of ebbing day. 



From The Sacramental System. Longmans, Green, and Company. 



124 

THE VERA CRUZ DEAD 

Woodrow Wilson 

MR. SECRETARY: I know that the feelings which characterize 
all who stand about me and the whole nation at this hour are 
not feelings which can be suitably expressed in terms of attempted 
oratory or eloquence. They are things too deep for ordinary speech. 
For my own part, I have a singular mixture of feelings. The feeling 
which is uppermost is one of profound grief that these lads should 
have had to go to their death, and yet there is mixed with that grief 
a profound pride that they should have gone as they did, and, if I 
may say it out of my heart, a touch of envy of those who were permit- 
ted so quietly, so nobly, to do their duty. 

Notice how truly these men were of our blood. I mean of our 
American blood, which is not drawn from any one country, which is 
not drawn from any one stock, which is not drawn from any one lan- 
guage of the modern world; but free men everywhere have sent their 
sons and their brothers and their daughters to this country in order 
to make that great compounded nation which consists of all the 
sturdy elements and of all the best elements of the whole globe. I 
listened again to this list with a profound interest at the mixture of 
names, for the names bear the marks of the several national stocks 
from which these men came. But they are not Irishmen or Germans 
or Frenchmen or Hebrews or Italians any more. They were not 
when they went to Vera Cruz; they were Americans, every one of 
them, and with no difference in their Americanism because of the 
stock from which they came. 

They were in a peculiar sense of our blood and they proved it by 
showing that they were of our spirit — that no matter what their 
derivation, no matter where their people came from, they thought 
and wished and did the things that were American; and the flag 
under which they served was a flag in which all the blood of mankind 
is united to make a free nation. 



From an address delivered at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, May u, 1914. 



125 

ENLISTED MEN 
Woodrow Wilson 

WAR, gentlemen, is only a sort of dramatic representation, a 
sort of dramatic symbol, of a thousand forms of duty. I never 
went into battle; I never was under fire; but I fancy there are some 
things just as hard to do as to go under fire. I fancy that it is just as 
hard to do your duty when men are sneering at you as when they are 
shooting at you. When they shoot at you, they can only take your 
natural life; when they sneer at you, they can wound your living 
heart, and men who are brave enough, steadfast enough, steady in 
their principles enough, to go about their duty with regard to their 
fellowmen, no matter whether there are hisses or cheers, men who 
can do what Rudyard Kipling in one of his poems wrote, "Meet with 
triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same," 
are men for a nation to be proud of. Morally speaking, disaster and 
triumph are imposters. The cheers of the moment are not what a 
man ought to think about, but the verdict of his conscience and the 
consciences of mankind. 

When I look at you, I feel as if I also and we all were enlisted men, 
not enlisted in your particular branch of the service, but enlisted to 
serve the country, no matter what may come, even though we may 
waste our lives in the arduous endeavor. We are expected to put the 
utmost energy of every power that we have into the service of our 
fellow-men, never sparing ourselves, not condescending to think of 
what is going to happen to ourselves, but ready, if need be, to go the 
utter length of complete self-sacrifice. 

As I stand and look at you to-day and think of these spirits that 
have gone from us, I know that the road is clearer for the future. 
These boys have shown us the way, and it is easier to walk on it be- 
cause they have gone before and shown us how. May God grant to 
all of us that vision of patriotic service which here in solemnity and 
grief and pride is borne in upon our hearts and consciences ! 



From an address delivered at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, May n, 1914. 



126 

THE CATHEDRAL 

Morgan Dix 

HERE stands the sacred pile, every square foot teaching a lesson 
and expressing a truth. The western front faces a storm-swept 
world, as a barrier of rock the angry sea; figures of Archangel and 
Angel, Apostles, Saints, and Warriors seem to repel the powers of 
darkness; grotesque shapes here and there suggest the strange, in- 
congruous elements so warded off lest they might disturb the peace 
of the Holy City. The western towers represent the Apostolic Min- 
istry, firm and unshaken. The portals, enriched with leaf, flower, 
and fruit, and deeply cusped and shafted, welcome the approaching 
pilgrim, whom sweet and peaceful countenances also regard as he 
draws nigh. He sees the long sweep of the wall and roof line, the 
transepts, the flying buttresses, throwing their arms across the sky; 
and there, above, the spire rises, and melts away into the air, catch- 
ing the first rays of the morning light, flushed by the sunset, and hold- 
ing up the everlasting cross amidst the stars of night. 

Enter, and hushed now be soul and heart, for we are in another 
world. There are the calm of the deep green woods, the "stillness 
of the central sea." The arcades of the forest are before us; piers 
and columns stand to the right and left, like the monarchs of the 
grove; above is the roof for a sky; pictures, mosaics, colors, rainbow 
hues, make it "all glorious within." 

Lesser altars, each with its ornaments, catch the eye, but it rests, 
finally, upon the central throne of the Presence. And now, it may be, 
while eyes are full, and heart as though it could hold no more, shall 
come the sound qf music, which, rolling in deep diapason, fills the 
air; and chants are heard like the voices of eternity and the songs 
of the New Jerusalem; and forth, in procession, with cross and banner, 
with cope and shining vestment, come figures, which approach, and 
ascend the grades of the choir and the altar steps, and show forth 
The Death, till He come. 



From The Sacramental System. Longmans, Green, and Company. 



127 
A GREAT WAR AND ITS LESSONS 

Nicholas Murray Butler 

OUR usual interests however great, our usual problems however 
pressing, all seem petty and insignificant in view of what has 
befallen the world. The murky clouds of cruel, relentless war, lit 
by the lightning flash of great guns and made more terrible by the 
thunderous booming of cannon, hang over the European countries 
that we know and love so well. The great scholars that we would 
have so gladly welcomed here, have not come to us. They are killing 
and being killed across the sea. Friends and colleagues whom we 
honor are filled with hate toward each other. Mankind is back in the 
primeval forest, with the elemental brute passions finding a truly 
fiendish expression. The only apparent use of science is to enable 
men to kill other men more quickly and in greater numbers. The only 
apparent service of philosophy is to make the worse appear the better 
reason. The only apparent evidence of the existence of religion is the 
fact that divergent and impious appeals to a palpably pagan God, have 
led him, in perplexed distress, to turn over the affairs of Europe to 
an active and singularly accomplished devil. 

What are we to think? Is science a sham? Is philosophy a pretence? 
Is religion a mere rumor? Is the great international structure of 
friendship, good- will and scholarly co-operation only an illusion? Are 
the long and devoted labors of scholars and of statesmen to enthrone 
Justice in the place of Brute Force, ... all without effect? Are 
Lowell's lines true: — 

Right forever on the scaffold, 
Wrong forever on the throne? 

The answer is No; a thousand times, No! 

. We may yet live to see our great policies of peace 
. generally assented to, and, as a result, the world's re- 
sources set free to improve the lot of peoples, to advance science 
and scholarship, and to raise humanity to a level yet unheard of. 
Here lies the path of national glory for us, and here is the call to 
action in the near future. 

From an address delivered at Columbia University at the opening of the academic 
year, 1914. 



128 



THE DIGNITY OF WORK 

Thomas Carlyle 

THERE is a perpetual nobleness in work. There is always hope 
in a man that works: in idleness alone is there perpetual despair. 
Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessed- 
ness. All true work is sacred; in all true work, were it but hand- 
labor, there is something of divineness. Sweat of the brow; and up 
from that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart; this is the noblest 
thing yet discovered under God's sky. 

Two men I honor, and no third. First the toilworn Craftsman 
that with earth-made implement laboriously conquers earth and makes 
her man's. Venerable to me is the hard hand; crooked, coarse; 
wherein notwithstanding lies a cunning virtue, indefeasibly royal, 
as of the scepter of this planet. Venerable too is the rugged face, 
all weather-tanned, besoiled, with its rude intelligence; for it is the 
face of a man living manlike. Toil on, toil on: thou art in thy duty, 
be out of it who may; thou toilest for the altogether indispensable, 
for daily bread. 

A second man I honor, and still more highly: him who is seen 
toiling for the spiritually indispensable; not daily bread, but the 
bread of life. Is not he too in his duty? If the poor and humble 
toil that we have food, must not the high and glorious toil for him in 
return, that he have light, have guidance, freedom, immortality? 
These two, in all their degrees I honor; all else is chaff and dust, 
which let the wind blow whither it listeth. 



129 

THE WILDERNESS ROAD 

James Lane Allen 

HISTORY was thicker here than along the Appian Way. 
Ages before — before Job's sheep lay sick in the land of Uz — 
before a Hon had lain down to dream in the jungle where Babylon 
was to arise and to become a name, — this old, old, old high road may 
have been a footpath of the awful mastodon. 

Ay, for ages the mastodon had trodden this dust. And, ay, for ages 
later the bison. And, ay, for ages a people, over whose vanished 
towns and forts and graves had grown the trees of a thousand years, 
holding in the mighty claws of their roots the dust of those long, long 
secrets. And for centuries later still along this path had crept or rush- 
ed or fled the Indians; now coming from over the Southern mountains; 
now from the sad frozen forests and steely marges of the Lakes: 
both eager for the chase at first and then more eager for each other's 
death for the sake of the whole chase: so that this immemorial game- 
trace had become a war-path — a long dim forest street alive with the 
advance and retreat of plume-bearing, vermilion-painted armies; 
and its rich black dust had been dyed from end to end with the red 
of the heart. 

And last of all into this ancient woodland street of war one day 
there had stepped a strange new-comer — the Anglo-Saxon, in whose 
blood beat the conquest of many a wilderness before this — the wilder- 
ness of Britain, the wilderness of Normandy, the wildernesses of the 
Black, of the Hercinian forest, the wilderness of the frosted marshes 
of the Elbe and the Rhine and of the North Sea's wildest wandering 
foam and fury. 

Here white lover and red lover had met and fought. And already 
the red lover was gone and the fair-haired lover stood the quiet 
owner of the road, the last of all its long train of conquerors brute and 
human — with his cabin near by, his wife smiling beside the spinning- 
wheel, his baby crowing on the threshold. 



Adapted from The Choir Invisible. The Macmillan Company. 



130 

TRUTH IN SPEECH 

John H. Finley 

I HAVE attempted a catalogue of those who do not tell the truth: 
first are those who do not know the truth and who tell it, if ever, 
by accident; second are those who know the truth, but, knowing it, 
have no wish to tell it or refuse to tell it; and third are those who 
know the truth, or who know it vaguely, and who desire to tell it, 
but know not how to tell it. 

These intimate the three ends of education : to know the truth, to be 
willing to tell it, and then to be able to speak it. We may have to" 
leave to the few, even in a democracy, the finding of the truth, but if 
this democracy is to be the splendid thing we dream of, the many 
must be willing and courageous to tell the truth they receive, and able 
to tell it. In the Old World it is being said that the democratization 
of education is resulting in a deterioration of speech. That may mean 
only that certain traditional conventions are no longer observed; but 
if it means that language is becoming less clear, less accurately truth- 
ful, less faithful to the thought which sends it forth, the life of the 
whole people will suffer. 

The people of this country have fought for free speech, but, that won, 
will not be of lasting avail if there is not clear, courageous, truthful 
speech. And I am thinking that what this democracy most clearly 
asks of her colleges is that they shall send forth lovers of pure speech, 
of honest speech, who can teach her children, who can write her laws 
for her, who can compose an amendment to the constitution that is 
its own interpretation, who can discover to others in plain, unambigu- 
ous English, the good which they have learned, discerning it from 
the evil. 



From an address at the Commencement exercises at Wellesley College, 19 14. 



131 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 



THE BARREL-ORGAN 

Alfred Noyes 

THERE'S a barrel-organ carolling across a golden street 
In the City as the sun sinks low; 
And the music's not immortal; but the world has made it sweet 

And fulfilled it with the sunset glow; 
And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the pain 

That surround the singing organ like a large eternal light; 
And they've given it a glory and a part to play again 
In the Symphony that rules the day and night. 

And now it's marching onward through the realms of old romance, 

And trolling out a fond familiar tune, 
And now it's roaring cannon down to fight the King of France, 

And now it's prattling softly to the moon, 
And aU around the organ there's a sea without a shore 

Of human joys and wonders and regrets; 
To remember and to recompense the music evermore 
For what the cold machinery forgets. . . . 
And there La Traviata sighs 

Another sadder song; 
And there II Trovatore cries 

A tale of deeper wrong; 
And bolder knights to battle go 

With shield and sword and lance, 
Than ever here on earth below 
Have whirled into — a dance — 
Go down to Kew in lilac- time, in lilac- time, in lilac- time; 

Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London !) 
And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland; 
Go down to Kew in lilac- time (it isn't far from London!) 

From Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes. Frederick A. Stokes Company. 



132 
THE HOUSE BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD 

Sam Walter Foss 

THERE are hermit souls that live withdrawn 
In the peace of their self content. 
There are souls, like stars, that dwell apart, 

In a fellowless firmament; 
There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths 

Where highways never ran: — 
But let me live by the side of the road 
And be a friend to man. 

I see from my house by the side of the road, 

By the side of the highway of life, 
The men who press with the ardor of hope, 

The men who are faint with the strife. 
But I turn not away from their smiles nor their tears, 

Both parts of an infinite plan: — 
Let me live in my house by the side of the road 

And be a friend to man. 

I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead 

And mountains of wearisome height; 
That the road passes on through the long afternoon 

And stretches away to the night. 
But still I rejoice when the travellers rejoice, 

And weep with the strangers that moan, 
Nor live in my house by the side of the road 

Like a man who dwells alone. 

Let me live in my house by the side of the road 

Where the race of men go by — 
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong, 

Wise, foolish — so am I. 
Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat 

Or hurl the cynic's ban? 
Let me live in my house by the side of the road 

And be a friend to man. 

From Dreams in Homespun by Sam Walter Foss. Lothrop, Lee and Shepard Co. 



133 
EACH IN HIS OWN TONGUE 

William Hubert Carruth 

AFIRE-MIST and a planet, 
A crystal and a cell, 
A jellyfish and a saurian, 

And caves where cave-men dwell; 
Then a sense of law and beauty 

And a face turned from the clod, — 
Some call it Evolution, 
And others call it God. 

A haze on the far horizon, 

The infinite, tender sky, 
The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields, 

And the wild geese sailing high; 
And all over upland and lowland 

The sign of the golden-rod, — 
Some of us call it Autumn, 

And others call it God. 

Like tides on a crescent sea-beach, 

When the moon is new and thin, 
Into our hearts high yearnings 

Come welling and surging in: 
Come from the mystic ocean, 

Whose rim no foot has trod, — 
Some of us call it Longing, 

And others call it God. 

A picket frozen on duty, 

A mother starved for her brood, 
Socrates drinking the hemlock, 

And Jesus on the rood; 
And millions who, humble and nameless, 

The straight, hard pathway plod, — 
Some call it Consecration, 

And others call it God. 



From Each in His Own Tongue and Other Poems. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 



134 
A BIRTHNIGHT CANDLE 

John Finley 

A CANDLE, waiter! Thank you. No, 'tis not 
To light a cigarette. I wish its flame 
For better use. A little nearer, please. 
For if the guests should see, they'd wonder — well, 
But you do know that I have touched no wine 
This hallowed night, this night, the lad was born. 
The brilliant banquet-hall of myriad lamps 
Will not deny me this one little blaze 
From all its dazzling wealth to celebrate 
His natal festival. Do you, perchance, 
Not have this custom, garcon, in old France, 
Of lighting candles on a birthday cake, 
And quenching then each flame with some fond wish? 
Well, I have said that wheresoe'er this night 
O'ertook me exiled from his happy face, 
I'd blow a candle out with such desire 
As could have speech but in a lambent flame 
Piercing the mystery of space about. 
This night has found me guest at this high feast, 
Companioned of famed men, but with my thought 
Ever of him and her who gave him birth. 
And here's the candle. For some holy rite 
'T was doubtless fashioned 

There ! It has gone, and never light since God 
Divided day from dark has borne a prayer 
More ardent than this wish for him whose name 
I, bearing, vow anew to keep from stain. 

Put back the candle in its golden cup. 
No, thank you, waiter; no liqueur for me, 
But just a little coffee. Yes, two lumps. 
(The smoke is getting in my eyes.) That's all. 

From The Century Magazine, November, 1914. 



135 
THE MAN WITH THE HOE 

Edwin Markham 

IS this the Thing the Lord God made and gave 
To have dominion over sea and land; 
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power; 
To feel the passion of Eternity? 

What gulfs between him and the seraphim! 
Slave of the wheel of labour, what to him 
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades? 
What the long reaches of the peaks of song, 
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose? 
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look; 
Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop; 
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed, 
Plundered, profaned, and disinherited, 
Cries protest to the Judges of the World, 
A protest that is also prophecy. 

masters, lords and rulers in all lands, 

Is this the handiwork you give to God, 

This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched? 

How will you ever straighten up this shape; 

Touch it again with immortality; 

Give back the upward looking and the light; 

Rebuild in it the music and the dream; 

Make right the immemorial infamies, 

Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes? 

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, 
How will the future reckon with this man? 
How answer his brute question in that hour 
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world? 
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings — 
With those who shaped him to the thing he is — 
When this dumb Terror shall reply to God, 
After the silence of the centuries? 

Abbreviated from the poem by the same title. Doubleday and McClure Co. 



136 

BALLADE OF DEAD ACTORS 

William E. Henley 

WHERE are the passions they essayed, 
And where the tears they made to flow? 
Where the wild humours they portrayed 
For laughing worlds to see and know? 
Othello's wrath and Juliet's woe? 
Sir Peter's whims and Timon's gall? 
And Millamant and Romeo? 
Into the night go one and all. 

Where are the braveries, fresh or frayed? 
The plumes, the amours — friend and foe? 
The cloth of gold, the rare brocade, 
The mantles glittering to and fro? 
The pomp, the pride, the royal show? 
The cries of war and festival? 
The youth, the grace, the charm, the glow? 
Into the night go one and all. 

The curtain falls, the play is played: 
The Beggar packs beside the Beau; 
The Monarch troops, and troops the Maid; 
The Thunder huddles with the Snow. 
Where are the revellers high and low? 
The clashing swords? The lover's call? 
The dancers gleaming, row on row? 
Into the night go one and all. 



Prince, in one common overthrow 
The Hero tumbles with the Thrall: 
As dust that drives, as straws that blow, 
Into the night go one and all. 



From London Voluntaries and Other Poems. Mosher. 



137 



THE LAST BUCCANEER 

Charles Kingsley 

OH, England is a pleasant place for them that's rich and high; 
But England is a cruel place for such poor folks as I; 
And such a port for Mariners I ne'er shall see again, 
As the pleasant Isle of Aves, beside the Spanish main. 
There were forty craft in Aves that were both swift and stout, 
All furnish'd well with small arms and cannons round about: 
And a thousand men in Aves made laws so fair and free 
To choose their valiant captains and obey them loyally. 
Thence we sail'd against the Spaniard with his hoards of plate and gold, 
Which he wrung by cruel tortures from the Indian folk of old; 
Likewise the merchant captains, with hearts as hard as stone, 
Which flog men and keel-haul them and starve them to the bone. 
Oh, the palms grew high in Aves and fruits that shone like gold, 
And the colibris and parrots they were gorgeous to behold; 
Oh, sweet it was in Aves to hear the landward breeze, 
A-swing with good tobacco in a net between the trees. 
But Scripture saith, an ending to all fine things must be, 
So the King's ships sail'd on Aves and quite put down were we. 
All day we fought like bulldogs, but they burst the booms at night; 
And I fled in a piragua sore wounded from the fight. 
But as I lay a-gasping, a Bristol sail came by, 
And brought me home to England here to beg until I die. 
And now I'm old and going I'm sure I can't tell where; 
One comfort is, this world's so hard I can't be worse off there: 
If I might be a sea-dove, I'd fly across the main 
To the pleasant Isle of Aves, to look at it once again. 



From Poems and Ballads. The Macmillan Company. 



138 
THE LOST LEADER 

Robert Browning 

JUST for a handful of silver he left us, 
Just for a riband to stick in his coat — 
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, 

Lost all the others, she lets us devote; 
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, 

So much was theirs who so little allowed: 
How all our copper had gone for his service! 

Rags — were they purple, his heart had been proud! 
We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him, 

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, 
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, 

Made him our pattern to live and to die! 
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, 

Burns, Shelley, were with us, — they watch from their graves ! 
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, 

He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves ! 

We shall march prospering, — not thro' his presence; 

Songs may inspirit us, — not from his lyre; 
Deeds will be done, — while he boasts his quiescence, 

Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire: 
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, 

One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, 
One more devils'-triumph and sorrow for angels, 

One wrong more to man, one more insult to God! 
Life's night begins : let him never come back to us ! 

There would be doubt, hesitation and pain, 
Forced praise on our part — the glimmer of twilight, 

Never glad confident morning again! 
Best fight on well, for we taught him — strike gallantly, 

Menace our heart ere we master his own ; 
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, 

Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne ! 

From Poetical Works. The Macmillan Company. 



139 

MY LORD TOMNODDY 

Robert Barnabas Brough 

MY Lord Tomnoddy's the son of an Earl; 
His hair is straight, but his whiskers curl: 
His Lordship's forehead is far from wide, 
But there's plenty of room for the brains inside. 
He writes his name with indifferent ease, 
He's rather uncertain about the "d's;" 
But what does it matter, if three or one, 
To the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son? 

My Lord Tomnoddy to college went; 

Much time he lost, much money he spent; 

Rules, and windows, and heads he broke — 

Authorities wink'd — young men will joke ! 

He never peep'd inside a book: 

In two years' time a degree he took, 

And the newspapers vaunted the honors won 

By the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son. 

My Lord Tomnoddy must settle down — 
There's a vacant seat in the family town ! 
('T is time he should sow his eccentric oats) — 
He hasn't the wit to apply for votes: 
He cannot e'en learn his election speech; 
Three phrases he speaks, a mistake in each! 
And then breaks down — but the borough is won 
For the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son. 

My Lord Tomnoddy is thirty-four; 
The Earl can last but a few years more. 
My Lord in the Peers will take his place: 
His Majesty's councils his words will grace. 
Office he'll hold, and patronage sway; 
Fortunes and lives he will vote away; 
And what are his qualifications? — One! 
He's the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son. 



140 
COME UP FROM THE FIELDS, FATHER 

Walt Whitman 

COME up from the fields, father; here's a letter from our Pete; 
And come to the front door, mother; here's a letter from thy dear 

son. 
Down in the fields all prospers well; 

But now from the fields, come, father; come at thy daughter's call; 
And come to the entry, mother; to the front door come right away. 
Fast as she can she hurries, something ominous, her steps trembling ; 
She does not tarry to smooth her hair nor adjust her cap. 
Open the envelope quickly; 

this is not our son's writing, yet his name is signed; 
O a strange hand writes for our son, stricken mother's soul ! 
All swims before her eyes; flashes with black; she catches the main 

words only. 
Sentences broken, gunshot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, 

taken to hospital, 
At present low, but will soon be better. 

Ah, now the single figure to me, 

Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio with all its cities and farms, 

By the jamb of a door leans. 

Grieve not so, dear mother (the just-grown daughter speaks through 

her sobs; 
The little sisters huddle around speechless and dismayed), 
See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better. 
Alas, poor boy, he will never be better (nor may be needs to be better, 

that brave and simple soul), 
While they stand at home at the door he is dead already, 
The only son is dead. 

But the mother needs to be better, 

She with thin form presently dressed in black; 

By day her meals untouch' d; then at night fitfully sleeping, often 

waking; 
In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing, 
To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son. 



141 
THE RETURNED MAINE BATTLE FLAGS 

Moses Owen 

NOTHING but flags — but simple flags, 
Tattered and torn and hanging in rags; 
And we walk beneath them with careless tread, 
Nor think of the hosts of the mighty dead, 
That have marched beneath them in days gone by, 
With a burning cheek and a kindling eye, 
And have bathed their folds with their young life's tide, 
And, dying, blessed them, and, blessing, died. 

Nothing but flags — yet methinks, at night 
They tell each other their tales of fright; 
And dim spectres come and their thin arms twine 
'Round each standard torn as they stand in line! 
And the word is given — they charge! they form! 
And the dim hall rings with the battle's storm! 
And once again through the smoke and strife, 
Those colors lead to a Nation's life. 

Nothing but flags — yet they're bathed with tears, 

They tell of triumphs, of hopes, of fears; 

Of a mother's prayer, of a boy away, 

Of a serpent crushed, of the coming day! 

Silent, they speak, and the tear will start 

As we stand beneath them with throbbing heart, 

And think of those who are ne'er forgot; 

Their flags come home — why come they not? 

Nothing but flags — yet we hold our breath, 
And gaze with awe at those types of death! 
Nothing but flags, yet the thought will come, 
The heart must pray though the lips be dumb ! 
They are sacred, pure, and we see no stain 
On those dear loved flags at home again; 
Baptized in blood, our purest, best, 
Tattered and torn they're now at rest. 



142 
THE END OF THE PLAY 

William M. Thackeray 

THE play is done — the curtain drops, 
Slow falling to the prompter's bell; 
A moment yet the actor stops, 
And looks around, to say farewell. 
It is an irksome word and task; 
And, when he's laughed and said his say, 
He shows, as he removes the mask, 
A face that's anything but gay. 

One word, ere yet the evening ends — 
Let's close it with a parting rhyme; 
And pledge a hand to all young friends, 
As fits the merry Christmas time; 
On life's wide scene you, too, have parts, 
That fate ere long shall bid you play; 
Good-night! — with honest gentle hearts 
A kindly greeting go alway! 

I'd say we suffer and we strive 

Not less nor more as men than boys — 

With grizzled beards at forty-five, 

As erst at twelve in corduroys; 

And if, in time of sacred youth, 

We learned at home to love and pray, 

Pray Heaven that early love and truth 

May never wholly pass away. 

Come wealth or want, come good or ill, 
Let young and old accept their part, 
And bow before the awful will, 
And hear it with an honest heart, 
Who misses, or who wins the prize — 
Go, lose or conquer as you can; 
But if you fail, or if you rise, 
Be each, pray God, a gentleman. 



143 
MY LAST DUCHESS 

Robert Browning 

SIR, 't was all one! My favour at her breast, 
The dropping of the daylight in the west, 
The bough of cherries some officious fool 
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule 
She rode with round the terrace — all and each 
Would draw from her alike the approving speech, 
Or blush, at least. She thanked men, — good! but thanked 
Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked 
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name 
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame 
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill 
In speech — (which I have not) — to make your will" 
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this 
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, 
And there exceed the mark" — and if she let 
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set 
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, 
— E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose 
Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt, 
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without 
Much the same smile? This grew: I gave commands; 
Then aU smiles stopped together. There she stands 
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet 
The company below, then. I repeat, 
The Count your master's known munificence 
Is ample warrant that no just pretence 
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; 
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed 
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go 
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, 
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, 
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me ! 

From Poetical Works. The Macmillan Company. 



144 
THE RECRUIT 

A. E. Housman 

EAVE your home behind, lad, 
-' And reach your friends your hand, 
And go, and luck go with you 
While Ludlow tower shall stand. 

Oh, come you home on Sunday 
When Ludlow streets are still 

And Ludlow bells are calling 
To farm and lane and mill, 

Or come you home of Monday 
When Ludlow market hums 

And Ludlow chimes are playing 
"The conquering hero comes," 

Come you home a hero, 

Or come not home at all, 
The lads you leave will mind you 

Till Ludlow tower shall fall. 

And you will list the bugle 
That blows in lands of morn, 

And make the foes of England 
Be sorry you were born. 

And you till trump of doomsday 

On fields of morn may lie, 
And make the hearts of comrades 

Be heavy where you die. 

Leave your friends behind you, 
Your friends by field and town: 

Oh, town and field will mind you 
Till Ludlow tower is down. 



From A Shropshire Lad. T. B. Mosher. 



145 
THE COWBOYS LIFE 

James Barton Adams 

THE bawl of a steer, 
To a cowboy's ear, 
Is music of sweetest strain; 
And the yelping notes 
Of the gray coyotes 
To him are a glad refrain. 

For a kingly crown 

In the noisy town 

His saddle he wouldn't change; 

No life so free 

As the life we see 

Way out on the Yaso range. 

The rapid beat 

Of his broncho's feet 

On the sod as he speeds along, 

Keeps living time 

To the ringing rhyme 

Of his rollicking cowboy song. 

Hike it, cowboys, 

For the range away 

On the back of a bronc of steel, 

With a careless flirt 

Of the raw-hide quirt, 

And the dig of a roweled heel! 

The winds may blow 

And the thunder growl 

Or the breezes may softly moan;- 

A cowboy's life 

Is a royal life, 

His saddle, his kingly throne. 



From Cowboy Songs, compiled by John A. Lomax. Sturgis and Walton Com- 
pany. 



146 
THE BLOOD OF PEASANTS 

Alfred Noyes 

A MURDERED man, ten miles away, 
Will hardly shake your peace, 
Like one red stain upon your hand; 
And a tortured child in a distant land 
Will never check one smile to-day, 
Or bid one riddle cease. 

Around a shining table sat 

Five men in black tail-coats; 
And what their sin was, none could say; 
For each was honest, after his way, 
(Tho' there are sheep, and armament firms, 

With all that this "connotes"). 

One was the friend of a merchant prince, 

One was the foe of a priest, 
One had a brother whose heart was set 
On a gold star and an epaulette, 
And — where the rotten carcass lies, 

The vultures flock to feast. 

But — each was honest after his way, 

Lukewarm in faith and old; 
And blood, to them, was only a word, 
And the point of a phrase their only sword, 
And the cost of war, they reckoned it 

In little disks of gold. 

For they were strong. So might is right, 

And reason wins the day. 
And, if at a touch on a silver bell 
They plunged three nations into hell, 
The blood of peasants is not red 

A hundred miles away. 



Adapted from The Wine Press by Alfred Noyes. Frederick A. Stokes Company. 



147 

WHITTINGTONS LONDON 

Alfred Noyes 

LONDON was a City when the Poulters ruled the Poultry! 
Rosaries of prayer were hung in Paternoster Row, 
Gutter Lane was Guthrun's, then; and, bright with painted missal- 
books, 
Ave Mary Comer, sirs, was fairer than ye know. 

London was mighty when her marchaunts loved their merchandise, 
Bales of Eastern magic that empurpled wharf and quay: 

London was mighty when her booths were a dream-market, 
Loaded with the colours of the sunset and the sea. 

There, in all their glory, with the Virgin on their bannerols, 

Glory out of Genoa, the Mercers might be seen, 
Walking to the company of Marchaunt Adventurers; — ■ 

Gallantly they jetted it in scarlet and in green. 

Flos Mercatoruml Can a good thing come of Nazareth? 

High above the darkness, where our duller senses drown, 
Lifts the splendid Vision of a City, built on merchandise, 

Fairer than the City of Light that wore the violet crown, 

Lifts the sacred vision of a far-resplendent City, 
Flashing, like the heart of heaven, its messages afar, 

Trafficking, as God Himself, through all His interchanging worlds, 
Holding up the scales of law, weighing star by star, 

Ordered and harmonious, a City built to music, 
Lifting, out of chaos, the shining towers of law, — 

Ay, a sacred City, and a City build of merchandise, 
Flos Mercatorum, was the City that he saw. 



From Flos Mercatorum in Tales of the Mermaid Tavern by Alfred Noyes. 
The Frederick A. Stokes Company. 



148 



THE SPELL OF THE YUKON 

Robert W. Service 

I WANTED the gold and I sought it; 
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave. 
Was it famine or scurvy — I fought it; 

I hurled my youth into a grave. 
I wanted the gold, and I got it — 

Came out with a fortune last fall, — 
Yet somehow life's not what I thought it, 
And somehow the gold isn't all. 

I've stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow 

That's plumb full of hush to the brim; 
I've watched the big, husky sun wallow 

In crimson and gold, and grow dim, 
Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming, 

And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop; 
And I've thought that I surely was dreaming, 

With the peace of the world piled on top. 

There's the gold, and it's haunting and haunting: 

It's luring me on as of old; 
Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting 

So much as just finding the gold. 
It's the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder, 

It's the forests where silence has lease; 
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder, 

It's the stillness that fills me with peace. 



From The Spell of the Yukon, by Robert W. Service, published by Barse and 
Hopkins. 



149 
HE FELL AMONG THIEVES 

Henry Newbolt 

HE laughed: "If one may settle the score for five, 
I am ready; but let the reckoning stand till day: 
I have loved the sunlight as dearly as any alive." 

"You shall die at dawn," said they. 
He flung his empty revolver down the slope; 

He climbed to the eastward edge of the trees; 
All night long in a dream untroubled of hope 

He brooded, clasping his knees. 
He saw the April noon on his books aglow, 

The wistaria trailing in at the window wide; 
He heard his father's voice from the terrace below 

Calling him down to ride. 
He saw the School Close, sunny and green, 

The runner beside him, the stand by the parapet wall, 
The distant tape, and the crowd roaring between, 

His own name over all. 
He saw the dark wainscot and timbered roof, 

The long tables, and the faces merry and keen; 
The College Eight and their trainer dining aloof, 

The Dons on the dais serene. 
He watched the liner's stem ploughing the foam, 

He felt the trembling speed and the thrash of her screw; 
He heard her passengers' voices talking of home, 

He saw the flag she flew. 
Light on the Laspur hills was broadening fast, 

The blood-red snow-peaks chilled to a dazzling white; 
He turned, and saw the golden circle at last, 

Cut by the eastern height. 
"O glorious Life, Who dwellest in earth and sun, 

I have lived, I praise and adore Thee." A sword swept. 
Over the pass the voices one by one 

Faded, and the hill slept. 

Abbreviated. From Admirals All. John Lane. 



150 



THE CENTENARY OF THE BATTLE OF PLATTS- 
BURG 

Percy MacKaye 

MACDONOUGH lies with Downie in one land. 
Victor and vanquished long ago were peers. 
Held in the grip of peace an hundred years 

England has laid her hand 
In ours, and we have held (and still shall hold) the band 
That makes us brothers of the hemispheres; 
Yea, still shall keep the lasting brotherhood 
Of law and blood. 

Yet one whose terror racked us long of yore 
Still wreaks upon the world her lawless might: 
Out of the deeps again the phantom Fight 

Looms on her wings of war, 
Sowing in armed camps and fields her venomed spore, 
Embattling monarch's whim against man's right, 
Trampling with iron hoofs the blooms of time 

Back in the slime. 

We, who from dreams of justice, dearly wrought, 
First rose in the eyes of patient Washington, 
And through the molten heart of Lincoln won 

To liberty forgot, 
Now, standing lone in peace 'mid titans strange distraught, 
Pray much for patience, more — God's will be done ! — 
For vision and for power nobly to see 

The world made free. 



From Fight in The Present Hour. The Macmillan Company. 



151 
DRAMATIC SELECTIONS 



TAMBURLAINE TO THE CAPTIVE KINGS 

Christopher Marlowe 

HOLLA, ye pampered jades of Asia ! 
What! can ye draw but twenty miles a day, 
And have so proud a chariot at your heels, 
And such a coachman as great Tamburlaine, 
But from Asphaltis, where I conquered you, 
To Byron here, where thus I honour you! 
The horse that guide the golden eye of Heaven, 
And blow the morning from their nosterils, 
Making their fiery gait above the clouds, 
Are not so honoured in their governor, 
As you, ye slaves, in mighty Tamburlaine. 
The headstrong jades of Thrace Alcides tamed, 
That King Egeus fed with human flesh, 
And made so wanton that they knew their strengths, 
Were not subdued with valour more divine 
Than you by this unconquered arm of mine. 
To make you fierce, and fit my appetite, 
You shall be fed with flesh as raw as blood, 
And drink in pails the strongest muscadel; 
If you can live with it, then live and draw 
My chariot swifter than the racking clouds; 
If not, then die like beasts, and fit for naught 
But perches for the black and fatal ravens. 
Thus am I right the scourge of highest Jove; 
And see the figure of my dignity 
By which I hold my name and majesty! 

From Tamburlaine the Great. Part II. 



152 

THE JEW OF MALTA 

Christopher Marlowe 

IN spite of these swine-eating Christians, — 
Unchosen nation, never circumcised, 
Such as (poor villains!) were ne'er thought upon 
Till Titus and Vespasian conquered us, — 
Am I become as wealthy as I was: 
They hoped my daughter would ha' been a nun; 
But she's at home, and I have bought a house 
As great and fair as is the governor's; 
And there in spite of Malta will I dwell, 
Having Ferneze's hand, whose heart I'll have; 
Who, of mere charity and Christian truth, 
To bring me to religious purity, 
And as it were in catechising sort, 
To make me mindful of my mortal sins, 
Against my will, and whether I would or no, 
Seized all I had, and thrust me out o' doors, 
And made my house a place for nuns most chaste. 
I am not of the tribe of Levi, I, 
That can so soon forget an injury. 
I learned in Florence how to kiss my hand, 
Heave up my shoulders when they call me dog, 
And duck as low as any barefoot friar; 
Hoping to see them starve upon a stall. 
Here comes Don Lodowick, the governor's son. 

Now will I show myself 
To have more of the serpent than the dove; 
That is — more knave than fool. 
It shall go hard but I will see your death. 



Adapted from the play by this name. 



153 

THE SEVEN AGES 

William Shakespeare 

All the world's a stage, 
And all the men and women merely players: 
They have their exits and their entrances; 
And one man in his time plays many parts, 
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, 
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. 
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel 
And shining morning face, creeping like snail 
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, 
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad 
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, 
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, 
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, 
Seeking the bubble reputation 
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, 
In fair round belly with good capon lined, 
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, 
Full of wise saws and modern instances; 
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts 
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, 
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, 
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide 
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, 
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes 
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, 
That ends this strange eventful history, 
Is second childishness and mere oblivion, 
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing. 



From As You Like It. 



154 

ARTHURS PLEA TO HUBERT 

WilIiam Shakespeare 

MUST you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes? 
Have you the heart? When your head did but ache, 
I knit my handkercher about your brows, 
The best I had, a princess wrought it me, 
And I did never ask it you again; 
And with my hand at midnight held your head, 
And, like the watchful minutes to the hour, 
Still and anon cheer'd up the heavy time, 
Saying, "What lack you? and, Where lies your grief?" 
Or, "What good love may I perform for you?" 
Many a poor man's son would have lien still, 
And ne'er have spoke a loving word to you; 
But you at your sick service had a prince. 
Nay, you may think my love was crafty love, 
And call it cunning: do, an if you will: 
If heaven be pleased that you must use me ill, 
Why, then you must. Will you put out mine eyes? 
These eyes that never did nor never shall 
So much as frown on you. 
Ah, none but in this iron age would do it! 
The iron of itself, though heat red-hot, 
Approaching near these eyes, would drink my tears 
And quench its fiery indignation 
Even in the matter of mine innocence; 
Nay, after that, consume away in rust, 
But for containing fire to harm mine eye. 
Are you more stubborn hard than hammer'd iron? 
An if an angel should have come to me 
And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes, 
I would not have believed him, — no tongue but Hubert's. 



From King John. 



155 

PRINCE ARTHUR AND HUBERT 

William Shakespeare 

HUBERT. Come, boy, prepare yourself. 
Arthur. Is there no remedy? 

Hubert. None, but to lose your eyes. 

Arthur. O heaven, that there were but a mote in yours , 
Any annoyance of that precious sense! 
Then, feeling what small things are boisterous there, 
Your vile intent must needs seem horrible. 

Hubert. Is this your promise? go to, hold your tongue. 

Arthur. Hubert, the utterance of a brace of tongues 
Must needs want pleading for a pair of eyes: 
Let me not hold my tongue, let me not, Hubert; 
Or, Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue, 
So I may keep mine eyes: O, spare mine eyes, 
Though to no use, but still to look on you ! 
Lo, by my troth, the instrument is cold 
And would not harm me. 

Hubert. I can heat it, boy. 

Arthur. No, in good sooth; the fire is dead with grief; 
There is no malice in this burning coal. 

Hubert. But with my breath I can revive it, boy. 

Arthur. An if you do, you will make it blush 
And glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert. 
All things that you should use to do me wrong 
Deny their office : only you do lack 
That mercy which fierce fire and iron extends. 

Hubert. Well, see to live; I will not touch thine eye 
For all the treasure that thine uncle owes : 
Yet am I sworn and I did purpose, boy, 
With this same iron to burn them out. — 
Your uncle must not know but you are dead. 



From King John. 



156 



PRINCE EDWARD AND GLOUCESTER 

William Shakespeare 

GLOUCESTER. Welcome, dear cousin, my thoughts' sovereign : 
The way hath made you melancholy. 

Prince. No, uncle; but our crosses on the way 
Have made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy. 

Gloucester. My lord, the mayor of London comes to greet you. 

Prince. I thank you, good my lord; and thank you all. 
I thought my mother and my brother York 
Would long ere this have met us on the way: 
Say, Uncle Gloucester, if our brother come, 
Where shall we sojourn till our coronation? 

Gloucester. Where it seems best unto your royal self. 
If I may counsel you, some day or two 
Your highness shall repose you at the Tower; 
Then where you please, and shall be thought most fit 
For your best health and recreation. 

Prince. I do not like the Tower, of any place. 
Did Julius Caesar build that place, my lord? 

Gloucester. He did, my gracious lord, begin that place; 
Which, since, succeeding ages have re-edified. 

Prince. That Julius Caesar was a famous man; 
With what his valour did enrich his wit, 
His wit set down to make his valour live: 
Death makes no conquest of this conqueror; 
For now he lives in fame, though not in life. 
I'll tell you what .... 
An if I live until I be a man, 
I'll win our ancient right in France again, 
Or die a soldier, as I lived a king. 

Gloucester. (Aside.) Short summers lightly have a forward spring. 



Adapted from Richard the Third. 



157 
QUEEN MAB 

William Shakespeare 

OH! then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you. 
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes 
In shape no bigger than an agate stone 
On the forefinger of an alderman, 
Drawn by a team of little atomies 
Athwart men's noses, as they lie asleep: 
Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners' legs, 
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers; 
Her traces, of the smallest spider's web, 
Her collars, of the moonshine's watery beams: 
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film; 
Her wagoner, a small gray-coated gnat: 
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut, 
Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub, 
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers. 
And in this state she gallops, night by night 
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love; 
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight; 
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees; 
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream: 
Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose, 
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit; 
And sometimes come she with a tithe-pig's tail 
Tickling a parson's nose, as a' lies asleep, 
Then dreams he of another benefice: 
Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, 
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, 
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, 
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon 
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, 
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two, 
And sleeps again. 

From Romeo and Juliet. 



158 
CASSIUS INSTIGATING BRUTUS 

William Shakespeare 

I WAS born free as Caesar; so were you: 
We both have fed as well, and we can both 
Endure the winter's cold as well as he: 
For once, upon a raw and gusty day, 
The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, 
Caesar said to me, "Darest thou, Cassius, now 
Leap in with me into this angry flood, 
And swim to yonder point?" Upon the word, 
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in 
And bade him follow: so indeed he did. 
The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet it 
With lusty sinews, throwing it aside 
And stemming it with hearts of controversy; 
But ere we could arrive the point proposed, 
Caesar cried, "Help me, Cassius, or I sink!" 
I, as /Eneas, our great ancestor, 
Bid from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder 
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber 
Did I the tired Caesar. And this man 
Is now become a god, and Cassius is 
A wretched creature and must bend his body 
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him. 
He had a fever when he was in Spain, 
And when the fit was on him, I did mark 
How he did shake: 'tis true, this god did shake: 
Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans 
Mark him and write his speeches in their books, 
Alas, it cried, "Give me some drink, Titinius," 
As a sick girl. Ye gods ! it doth amaze me 
A man of such a feeble temper should 
So get the start of the majestic world 
And bear the palm alone. 

From Julius Caesar. 



159 



MARULLUS TO THE COMMONERS 

William Shakespeare 

WHEREFORE rejoice? What conquest brings he home? 
What tributaries follow him to Rome, 
To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels? 
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things. 
Oh, you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, 
Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft 
Have you climbed up to walls and battlements, 
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops, 
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat 
The livelong day, with patient expectation, 
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome: 
And, when you saw his chariot but appear, 
Have you not made a universal shout, 
That Tiber trembled underneath her banks, 
To hear the replication of your sounds, 
Made in her concave shores? 
And do you now put on your best attire? 
And do you now cull out a holiday? 
And do you now strew flowers in his way, 
That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood? 
Begone: 

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, 
Pray to the gods to intermit the plague 
That needs must light on this ingratitude. 



From Julius Caesar. 



160 
BRUTUS AND LUCIUS 

William Shakespeare 

BRUTUS. Lucius, I say! 

I would it were my fault to sleep so soundly. 

Lucius. (Entering.) CalPd you, my lord? 

Brutus. Get me a taper in my study, Lucius : 
When it is lighted, come and call me here. (Exit Lucius.) 
It must be by his death. He would be crown'd: 
How that might change his nature, there's the question. 

Lucius. (Entering.) The taper burnetii in your closet, sir. 
Searching the window for a flint I found 
This paper thus seal'd up, and I am sure 
It did not lie there when I went to bed. (Gives him the letter.) 

Brutus. Get you to bed again; it is not day. 
Is not to-morrow, boy, the ides of March? 

Lucius. I know not, sir. 

Brutus. Look in the calendar and bring me word. (Exit Lucius.) 

Brutus. The exhalations whizzing in the air 
Give me so much light that I may read by them. (Reads letter.) 
"Brutus, thou sleep'st; awake and see thyself." 

Lucius. (Entering.) Sir, March is wasted fifteen days. 

Brutus. 'Tis good. (Knocking within.) Go to the gate; some- 
body knocks. (Exit Lucius.) 
Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar 
I have not slept. 

Lucius. (Entering.) Sir, 'tis your brother Cassius at the door, 
Who doth desire to see you. 

Brutus. Is he alone? 

Lucius. No, sir, there are moe with him. 

Brutus. Do you know them? 

Lucius. No sir; their hats are pluck'd about their ears, 
And half their faces buried in their cloaks. 

Brutus. Let 'em enter. (Exit Lucius.) 

They are the faction. 

Adapted from Julius Caesar. 



161 



BENEDICT ON LOVE 

William Shakespeare 

I DO much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a 
fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath 
laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his 
own scorn by falling in love: and such a man is Claudio. I have known 
when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and 
now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe: I have known when 
he would have walked ten mile a-foot to see a good armour; and now 
will he lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet. 
He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and 
a soldier; and now is he turned orthography; his words are a very fan- 
tastical banquet, — just so many strange dishes. May I be so con- 
verted, and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not: I will not 
be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my 
oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never make me 
such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet 
I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well: but till all graces be in 
one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall 
be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen 
her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, 
or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and 
her hair shall be of what colour it please Heaven! Ha! the prince 
and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. 



From Much Ado about Nothing. 



162 

WOLSEY TO CROMWELL 

William Shakespeare 

CROMWELL, I did not think to shed a tear 
In all my miseries; but thou hast forced me, 
Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman. 
Let's dry our eyes: and thus far hear me, Cromwell; 
And, when I am forgotten, as I shall be, 
And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention 
Of me more must be heard of, say, I taught thee; 
Say, Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory, 
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honor, 
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in; 
A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it. 
Mark but my fall, and that that ruin'd me. 
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition: 
By that sin fell the angels; how can man then, 
The image of his Maker, hope to win by it? 
Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee; 
Corruption wins not more than honesty. 
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, 
To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not : 
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, 
Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, 
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr! Serve the king; 
And prithee, lead me in : 
There take an inventory of all I have, 
To the last penny; 'tis the king's: my robe, 
And my integrity to heaven, is all 
I dare now call mine own. Cromwell, Cromwell! 
Had I but served my God with half the zeal 
I served my king, he would not in mine age 
Have left me naked to mine enemies. 



From King Henry the Eighth. 



163 
HENRY THE FIFTH AT HARFLEUR 

William Shakespeare 

ONCE more unto the breach, dear friends, once more 
Or close the wall up with our English dead. 
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man 
As modest stillness and humility: 
But when the blast of war blows in our ears, 
Then imitate the action of the tiger; 
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, 
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage; 
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; 
Let it pry through the portage of the head 
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it 
As fearfully as doth a galled rock 
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, 
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean. 
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, 
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit 
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English, 
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof! 
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders, 
Have in these parts from morn till even fought, 
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument: 
Be copy now to men of grosser blood, 
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen, 
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here 
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear 
That you were worth your breeding; which I doubt not; 
For there is none of you so mean and base, 
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes. 
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, 
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot: 
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge 
Cry, "God for Harry, England, and Saint George!" 

From King Henry the Fifth. 



164 



A FENCING LESSON FROM CAPTAIN BOABDIL 

Ben Jonson 

SQUIRE DOWNRIGHT, the half-brother, was't not? Saint 
George, I wonder you'd lose a thought upon such an animal. 
By his discourse, he should eat nothing but hay. By the foot of 
Pharaoh, and 'twere my case now, I should send him a chartel pres- 
ently. Come, you shall chartel him. I'll show you some small rudi- 
ments in the science, as to know my time, distance, or so. Hostess, 
accomodate us with another bad-staff here quickly. Lend us another 
bed-staff — the woman does not understand the words of action. 
Make a thrust at me — come in upon the answer, control your point, 
and make a full career at the body: the best-practiced gallants of 
the time name it the passado; a most desperate thrust, believe it. 
But you do not manage your weapon with any facility or grace to 
invite me. I have no spirit to play with you; your dearth of judg- 
ment renders you tedious. Come put on your cloak, and we'll go 
to some private place where you are acquainted; some tavern, or 
so — and have a bit. I'll send for one of these fencers, and he shall 
breathe you by my direction; and then I'll teach you your trick. Why 
I will learn you, by the true judgment of the eye, hand, and foot, to 
control an enemy's point in the world. Should your adversary con- 
front you with a pistol, 'twere nothing; by this hand, you should, 
by the same rule, control his bullet, in line, except it were hail shot 
and spread. But come; we will have a bunch of radish and salt to 
taste our wine, and a pipe of tobacco to close the orifice of the 
stomach. 



From Every Man in His Humour. 



165 

RALPH TO THE SOLDIERS 

Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher 

MARCH fair, my hearts! Lieutenant, bear the rear up. Ancient, 
let your colours fly; but have a great care of the butcher's 
hooks at Whitechapel; they have been the death of many a fair 
ancient. Soft and fair, gentlemen, soft and fair! Now, you with 
the sodden face, keep in there! Look to your match, sirrah, it will 
be in your fellow's flask anon. So, make a crescent now; advance 
your pikes; stand and give ear. 

Gentlemen, countrymen, friends, and my fellow soldiers, I have 
brought you this day, from the shops of security and the counters of 
content, to measure out on these furious fields honour by the ell, and 
prowess by the pound. Let it not, oh, let it not, I say, be told hereafter, 
the noble issue of this city fainted; but bear yourselves in this fair 
action like men, valiant men, and free men! Fear not the face of the 
enemy, nor the noise of the guns, for, believe me, brethren, the rude 
rumbling of a brewer's cart is far more terrible, of which you have a 
daily experience; neither let the smell of powder offend you. 

To a resolved mind his home is everywhere: 

I speak not this to take away 

The hope of your return; for you shall see 

(I do not doubt it) and that very shortly 

Your loving wives again and your sweet children, 

Whose care doth bear you company in baskets. 

Remember, then, whose cause you have in hand, 

And, like a sort of true-born scavengers, 

Scour me this famous realm of enemies. 

I have no more to say but this: stand to your tacklings, lads, and 
show to the world you can as well brandish a sword as shake an apron. 
Saint George, and on, my hearts. 



From The Knight of the Burning Pestle. 



166 
YOUNG FASHION IN STRAIGHTS 

Sir John Vanbrugh 

YOUNG FASHION. Come, pay the waterman, and take the 
portmanteau. 

Lory. Faith, sir, I think the waterman had as good take the 
portmanteau, and pay himself. 

Young F. Why, sure there's something left in it. 

Lory. But a solitary old waistcoat, upon my honor, sir. 

Young F. Why, what's become of the blue coat, sirrah? 

Lory. Sir, 'twas eaten at Gravesend. 

Young F. {To the Waterman.) I'gad I don't know how I shall 
pay thee then, for I have nothing but gold about me. But, faith, 
I think thou art a good conscionable fellow. I'gad, I care not if I 
leave my portmanteau with thee, till I send thee thy money. I'll 
send for't to-morrow. {Exit Waterman.) 

Lory. So — now, sir, I hope you'll own yourself a happy man, 
you have outliv'd all your care. 

Young F. How so, sir? 

Lory. Why you have nothing left to take care of. 

Young F. Sirrah, I have myself and you to take care of still. 

Lory. Sir, if you could but prevail with somebody else to do that 
for you, I fancy we might both fare the better for't. 

Young F. Why, if thou canst tell me where to apply myself, I 
have at present so little money, and so much humility about me, 
I don't know but I may follow a fool's advice. 

Lory. Why then, sir, your fool advises you to lay aside all ani- 
mosity, and apply to Sir Novelty, your elder brother. 

Young F. 'Sdeath, he would not give his powder puff to redeem 
my soul. What wouldst thou have me say to him? 

Lory. Say nothing to him; apply yourself to his favorites; speak 
to his periwig, his cravat, his feather, his snuffbox, and when you are 
well with them, desire him to lend you a thousand pounds. 

Young F. 'Sdeath and Furies! Why was that coxcomb thrust into 
the world before me? O Fortune — Fortune — Fortune! {Exeunt.) 

From The Relapse. 



167 

CATO'S SOLILOQUY ON IMMORTALITY 

Joseph Addison 

IT must be so. — Plato, thou reasonest well! 
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire 
This longing after immortality? 
Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror, 
Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul 
Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us; 
'Tis heaven itself, that points out a hereafter, 
And intimates eternity to man. 
Eternity! — thou pleasing dreadful thought! 
Through what variety of untried being, 
Through what new scenes and changes must we pass ! 
The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me; 
But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it. 
Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us, — 
And that there is, all Nature cries aloud 
Through all her works, — he must delight in virtue. 
And that which he delights in must be happy. 
But when? or where? This world was made for Caesar. 
I'm weary of conjectures, — this must end them. 
Thus am I doubly armed. My death and life, 
My bane and antidote, are both before me. 
This in a moment brings me to my end; 
But this informs me I shall never die. 
The soul, secure in her existence, smiles 
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. 
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself 
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years; 
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, 
Unhurt amid the war of elements, 
The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds. 



From Cato. 



168 

SIR LUCIUS INSTIGATES BOB ACRES 

Richard Brinsley Sheridan 

SIR LUCIUS. Mr. Acres, I am delighted to see you. Pray, my 
friend, what has brought you so suddenly to Bath? 

Acres. 'Faith, I have followed Cupid's Jack-a-lantern, and find 
myself in a quagmire at last! In short, I have been very ill-used. 

Sir L. Pray, what is the case? I ask no names. 

Acres. Mark me, Sir Lucius; I fall as deep as need be in love 
with a young lady — her friends take my part — I follow her to 
Bath — send word of my arrival — and receive answer, that the 
lady is to be otherwise disposed of. This, Sir Lucius, I call being 
ill used. 

Sir L. Very ill, upon my conscience! Pray, can you divine the 
cause of it? 

Acres. Why, there's the matter; she has another lover. He must 
be at the bottom of it. 

Sir L. A rival in the case, is there? Then sure you know what is 
to be done. 

Acres. Not I, upon my soul! 

Sir L. We wear no swords here, but you understand me? (Sir 
Lucius raises his finger and thumb.) 

Acres. What ! Fight him ! 

Sir L. Ay, to be sure; what can I mean else? 

Acres. But he has given me no provocation. 

SrR L. Now, I think he has given you the greatest provocation in 
the world. Can a man commit a more heinous offence against another 
than to fall in love with the same woman? Oh, by my soul, it is the 
most unpardonable breach of friendship. 

Acres. Breach of friendship! Ay, ay; but I have no acquaintance 
with this man. I never saw him in my life. 

Sm L. That's no argument at all — • he has less right, then, to take 
such a liberty. 

Acres. Gad, that's true — I'll challenge him directly. 



From The Rivals. 



169 

BOB ACRES AS A DUELIST 

Richard Brinsley Sheridan 

SIR LUCIUS. I suppose, Mr. Acres, you never were engaged in 
an affair of this kind before? 

Acres. No, Sir Lucius, never before. 

Sir L. Ah, that's a pity — there's nothing like being used to a thing. 
Pray, now, how would you receive the gentleman's shot? 

Acres. Odds files! I've practised that — there, Sir Lucius, there 
{Puts himself in an attitude) a side-front, hey? — Odds, I'll make 
myself small enough — I'll stand edgeways. 

Sir L. Now you're quite out — for if you stand so when I take my 
aim {Levelling at him), my bullet has a double chance; for if it misses 
a vital part of your right side, 'twill be very hard if it don't succeed on 
the left. But there! fix yourself, so. Now a bullet or two may pass 
clean through you and never do you any harm at all; and it is much 
the genteelest attitude into the bargain. 

Acres. Look 'ee ! Sir Lucius — I'd just as lieve be shot in an awk- 
ward posture as a genteel one — so, by my valour, I will stand 
edgeways. 

Sir L. {Looking at his watch.) Sure, I hope they won't disappoint 
us — 

Acres. {Aside.) I hope they do. 

SirL. {Looking of.) Hah! no, faith — I think I see them coming. 
Ay, who are those yonder, getting over the stile? 

Acres. They are two of them indeed! Well, let them come — hey, 
Sir Lucius! We — we — we — we — won't run. 

Sir L. Run! 

Acres. No, I say — we won't run, by my valour! 

Sir L. What's the matter with you? 

Acres. Nothing, nothing, my dear friend — my dear Sir Lucius — 
but I — I — I don't feel quite so bold, somehow, as I did. 

Sir L. Oh, fie! Consider your honour. 

Acres. Ay, true — my honour — do, Sir Lucius, edge in a word or 
two, every now and then, about my honour. 

From The Rivals. 



170 
THE REHEARSAL 

Richard Beinsley Sheridan 

SNEER. Sir, but one thing can increase my respect for you : your 
permitting me to be present at the rehearsal. 

Puff. Well, Mr. Sneer, I shall be infinitely happy — highly flatter- 
ed. What Shakespeare says of actors may be better applied to the 
purpose of plays : they ought to be the abstract and brief chronicle of 
the times. So, sir, I call my tragedy, "The Spanish Armada." 

Sneer. A most happy thought. But pray, now, I don't understand 
how you have contrived to introduce any love into it. 

Pute. Love! — Oh, nothing so easy. 

Sneer. No scandal about Queen Elizabeth, I hope? 

Puff. Oh, lud! no, no. I only suppose the Governor of Tilbury 
Fort's daughter to be in love with the son of the Spanish admiral. 

Sneer. Excellent! But won't this appear improbable? 

Puff. To be sure it will — but what the plague! A play is not to 
show occurrences that happen every day. 

Sneer. Certainly, nothing is unnatural that is not impossible. 

Puff. For that matter, Don Whiskerandos might have been here 
in the train of the Spanish ambassador. Then up curtain. (Curtain 
rises.) 

Sneer. Tilbury Fort! Very fine, indeed! 

Puff. Now, what do you think I open with? 

Sneer. Faith, I can't guess — 

Puff. A clock. Hark! I open with a clock to beget an awful at- 
tention in the audience. 

Sneer. But, pray, are the sentinels to be asleep? 

Puff. Fast as watchmen. 

Sneer. Isn't that odd though, at such an alarming crisis? 

Puff. To be sure, but two great men are coming; now they 
would not open their lips if these fellows were watching. 

Sneer. Oh, that accounts for it! — But who are these? 

Puff. Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Christopher Hatton. Now, 
attend. 

From The Critic. 



171 
PUFF AS A DIRECTOR 

Richard Brinsley Sheridan 

SIR CHRISTOPHER HATTON. True, gallant Raleigh! 
But oh, thou champion of thy country's fame, 
There is a question which I yet must ask, 
A question which I never asked before. 
What mean these mighty armaments? 
This general muster? and this throng of chiefs? 

Puff {Interrupting.) My good friend, you entirely forget what I 
told you in the last rehearsal — that there was a particular trait in 
Sir Christopher's character — that he was famous, in Queen Eliza- 
beth's time, for his dancing — pray, turn your toes out. {With his 
foot, he pushes Sir C.'s feet out until they are nearly square.) That 
will do — now, sir, proceed. 

Sir C. Alas, my noble friend, when I behold 
Yon tented plains in martial symmetry 
Arrayed — when I count o'er yon glittering lines 
Of crested warriors — 
When briefly all I hear or see bears stamp 
Of martial preparation, and stern defence, 
I cannot but surmise. Forgive, my friend, 
If the conjecture's rash — 

Puff. {Interrupting.) A little more freedom, — if you please. Re- 
member that Sir Christopher and Sir Walter were on the most famil- 
iar footing. Now, as thus — {Quotes the line flippantly.) 

Sir C. {Imitating.) I cannot but surmise. Forgive, my friend, 
If the conjecture's rash — I cannot but 
Surmise — the state some danger apprehends. 

Puff. {To his friends witnessing the rehearsal.) Yes, that's his char- 
acter; not to give an opinion but on secure grounds. Now, then, I 
think you shall hear some better language: I was obliged to be plain 
and intelligible in the first scene, because there was so much of matter 
in it; but now, i' faith, you have trope, figure, and metaphor, as plenty 
as noun-substantives. 

From The Critic. 



172 

CHARLES SURFACES AUCTION OF FAMILY POR- 
TRAITS 

Richard Brinsley Sheridan 

CHARLES SURFACE. Walk in, gentlemen, pray walk in;— Care- 
less, we want you: egad, you shall be auctioneer. Here they are, 
the family of Surfaces, up to the Conquest, done in the true spirit of 
portrait-painting — all stiff and awkward as the originals, and like 
nothing else in nature besides. But come, get to your pulpit, Mr. 
Auctioneer; here's an old gouty chair of my grandfather's will answer 
the purpose. 

Careless. Ay, ay, this will do. But, Charles, I haven't a hammer; 
and what's an auctioneer without his hammer? 

Charles. Egad, that's true. Here, Careless, here's the family tree 
for you. This shall be your hammer, and now you may knock down 
my ancestors with their own pedigree. 

Careless. Yes, yes, here's a list of your generation indeed; — faith, 
Charles, this is the most convenient thing you could have found for 
the business, for 'twill not only serve as a hammer, but a catalogue into 
the bargain. Come, begin — A-going, a-going, a-going! 

Charles. Bravo, Careless! Well, here's my great uncle, Sir 
Richard Ravelin, a marvellous good general in his day, I assure you. 
He served in all the Duke of Marlborough's wars, and got that cut over 
his eye at the battle of Malplaquet. What say you, Mr. Premium? 
look at him — there's a hero! not cut out of his feathers, as your 
modern clipped captains are, but enveloped in wig and regimentals, 
as a general should be. He shall have him for ten pounds, and I'm 
sure that's not dear for a staff-officer. Careless, knock down my 
uncle Richard. Here, now is a maiden sister of his, my great-aunt 
Deborah, done „by Kneller, in his best manner, and esteemed a very 
formidable likeness. There she is, you see, a shepherdess feeding her 
flock. You shall have her for five pounds ten — the sheep are worth 
the money. Knock down my aunt Deborah. 'Fore heaven! I find 
one's ancestors are more valuable than I took them for. 



Adapted from The School for Scandal. 



173 
HARDCASTLE AND HIS SERVANTS 

Oliver Goldsmith 

HARDCASTLE. Well, I hope you are perfect in the table exer- 
cise I have been teaching you these three days. You, Diggory, 
are to make a show at the side table; and you, Roger, are to place 
yourself behind my chair. But you're not to stand so, with your hands 
in your pockets. Take your hands from your pockets, Roger; and 
from your head, you blockhead you. See how Diggory carries his 
hands. They're a little too stiff, indeed, but that's no great matter. 

Diggory. Ay, mind how I hold them. I learned to hold my hands 
this way when I was upon drill for the militia. ' And so — 

Hard. You must not be so talkative, Diggory. You must hear us 
talk, and not think of talking; you must see us eat, and not think of 
eating. 

Dig. By the laws, your worship, that's parfectly unpossible. 
Whenever Diggory sees yeating going forward, ecod, he's always 
wishing for a mouthful himself. 

Hard. Blockhead! Is not a bellyful in the kitchen as good as 
a bellyful in the parlour? 

Dig. Ecod, I thank your worship, I'll make a shift to stay my 
stomach with a slice of cold beef in the pantry. 

Hard. Diggory, you are too talkative. Then, if I happen to tell a 
good story, you must not all burst out a-laughing. 

Dig. Then your worship must not tell the story of Old Grouse in the 
gun room: we've laughed at that these twenty years — ha! ha! ha! 

Hard. Ha! ha! ha! The story is a good one. Well, honest Dig- 
gory, you may laugh at that — but still remember to be attentive. 
Suppose one of the company should call for a glass of wine. A glass 
of wine, sir. Eh, why don't you move? 

Dig. Ecod, your worship, I never have courage till I see the eatables 
and drinkables upon the table, and then I'm as bauld as a lion. 

Hard. O, you dunces! I must begin all over again — But don't I 
hear a coach drive into the yard? To your posts, you blockheads. 
I'll go and give my old friend's son a hearty welcome. 

From She Stoops to Conquer. 



174 
A FOND FATHER AND A PRODIGAL SON 

Thomas Holcroft 

"V/TR. SMITH. (Aside.) The boy was a fine youth, but he spoiled 
■*■ "*■ him; and now he quarrels with himself and all the world. 

Dornton. Are you sure he said he should return to-night? 

Mr. S. Yes, sir. 

Dorn. And don't you know where he is gone? 

Mr. S. He did not tell me, sir. 

Dorn. I ask you if you know. 

Mr. S. I believe to Newmarket, sir. 

Dorn. You always believe the worst ! — I'll sit up no longer. — 
Tell the servants to go to bed. I have done with him. Let him starve ! 

Mr. S. He acts very improperly, sir, indeed. 

Dorn. Improperly! How? Have you heard anything of — . 

Mr. S. No-no, sir — Nothing but what you yourself tell me. 

Dorn. Then how do you know he has acted improperly? 

Mr. S. He is certainly a very good-hearted young gentleman, sir! 

Dorn. Good-hearted! How dare you make such an assertion? 

Mr. S. Upon my word, sir, I — 

Dorn. Upon your word! But it's over! His name has this very 
day been struck out of the firm. Let his drafts be returned. It's 
all ended. Be his distress what it will, not a guinea! 

Mr. S. I shall be careful to observe your orders, sir. 

Dorn. Why, would you see him starve? Would you, sir? 

Mr. S. Sir! Certainly not, except in obedience to your orders. 

Dorn. And could any orders justify your seeing a poor unfortu- 
nate youth, rejected by his father, starving to death? 

Mr. S. There is no danger of that, sir. 

Dorn. I tell you, the thing shall happen. 

Mr. S. I hope, sir, he still will make a fine man — I mean, a 
worthy man, sir. 

Dorn. How can you mean any such thing? The company he 
keeps would corrupt a saint. I know you are a faithful servant, Mr. 
Smith. — I know you are. But you, — you are not a father. 

From The Road to Ruin. 



175 
NEWS FROM THE PRODIGAL 

Thomas Holcroft 

DORNTON. Well, Mr. Sulky, have you heard anything of him? 
Sulky. Yes. 

Dorn. {Impatiently.) Anything consoling — anything good? 

Sulky. No. 

Dorn. No? — No, say you! — Where is he? What is he about? 

Sulky. I don't know. 

Dorn. Don't? — You torture me, sir! What have you heard? 

Sulky. (Slowly drawing a newspaper out of his pocket.) There; read! 

Dorn. Dead? 

Sulky. Worse ! 

Dorn. Mercy defend me! (Reads.) "The junior partner of the 
great banking house not a mile from the post-office has again been 
touched at Newmarket, for upwards of ten thousand pounds." 
(Pause.) It can't be! Can it? 

Sulky. Yes. 

Dorn. How do you know? What proof have you that it is not 
a He? 

Sulky. His own hand- writing: — bills at three days' sight, to the 
full amount, have already been presented. 

Dorn. And accepted? 

Sulky. Yes. 

Dorn. But why? Is not his name struck off the firm? 

Sulky. They were dated two days before. 

Dorn. The credit of my house begins to totter. What the effect 
of such a paragraph may be, I cannot tell. 

Sulky. I can : Ruin ! A run against the house, stoppage, bankruptcy ! 
Don't think I care for myself. No. I can sit at the desk again. 

Dorn. (Shouting.) Call all the servants together, clerks, foot- 
men, maids, every soul! Tell them their young master is a scoundrel. 
Bid them shut the door in his face. (Knocking occurs at street door.) 
So here is the youth returned. Don't mind his knocking! He shall 
starve in the streets. Fetch me my blunderbuss. 

From The Road to Ruin. 



176 
AT THE CROOKED BILLET 

J. R. Planche 

SIR RICHARD WROUGHTON. This little scrap of paper con- 
firms all — "To-night at eight o'clock, in the parlour of the 
inn." No address — no signature; but very like the handwriting of 
my fair cousin. Yes, yes, for your sake I obtained the pardon of 
this Jacobite; but it is not in your hands, yet; and if I catch you 
and your lover together, I will tear this paper before your face, and 
hang the traitor on the nearest tree. {John Duck enters r.) Who is 
this? 

John (Not observing Sir R.) £100! It is understood that I am to 
amass the sum of £100, before I claim the hand of Patty. I must 
get the money somehow, instantly. I will do anything for a hundred 
pounds. Who will give a hundred pounds to do anything? I am to be 
sold for a hundred pounds. This valuable young man, going for a 
hundred pounds. — going, going — 

Sir R. Gone. (Slapping him on shoulder.) You are mine! 

John. Hush! (Aside.) This man has overheard. He is about 
to propose some terrible crime! What would you have? 

Sir R. A trifling service. It is probable something will take place 
here at eight o'clock this evening, which I desire to be informed of. 

John. A — a — robbery — a — murder! 

Sir R. No! Simply a conversation of importance to the state; 
and your duty will be to hide, where you can hear and see. 

John. Nothing more? 

Sir R. If you repeat to me faithfully whatever occurs, I will give 
you immediately the £100. 

John. Depend on my discretion; it is the better part of my valour. 

Sir R. Enough! (Aside.) If this be the place, this man is my 
witness — if the " Greyhound," I shall be there. (Exit r.) 

John. "Important to the state!" I shall be the preserver of my 
king and country. Already, I see the traitors, armed to the teeth — 
armed? — ahem! — armed? — if I should be discovered, I may 
not be able to preserve even myself, let alone my king and country. 

From The Jacobite. 



177 

AT THE CROOKED BILLET, EVENING 

J. R. Planche 

MAJOR MURRAY. (Who has just had a meeting with Sir Richard's 
cousin, hearing a noise in a chest.) What's that? — the noise 
I heard before. It is from this chest! Some one is concealed in it. 
(John Duck comes forth.) How cam'st thou in that chest, and for 
what purpose? Speak! 

John. Let me breathe first; I'm all but smothered. 

Maj. Answer instantly. Were you placed there as a spy. 

John. (Aside.) A spy! One of the conspirators; the rest are gone ! 

Maj. You hesitate! (Puts point of sword to his throat). 

John. No, no — I was, I was. 

Maj. By whose orders? 

John. Sir Richard Wroughton's. 

Maj. Hah ! 

John. Don't be frightened. I have heard nothing, seen nothing. 

Maj. Thou liest! 

John. No — as I hope for mercy, it was quite impossible. 

Maj. How much did'st thou hope to gain? 

John. I was promised one hundred pounds. 

Maj. Here are two rouleaus of fifty guineas each, if you swear to 
keep my secret. 

John. I do, most solemnly! (Aside.) For I haven't the least 
notion what it is. 

Maj. Remember, to betray the unfortunate is an infamous action 
— to save them, a noble one. 

John. I am all for the noble one, and guineas instead of pounds. 

Maj. Take them. You have heard nothing that passed? 

John. I'll take my affidavit before the Lord Mayor. 

Maj. If you are faithful, I will double that sum. 

John. Double! You'll give me another hundred? 

Maj. Rely upon me. (Exit.) 

John. And rely upon me. The rack shan't move me. 

From The Jacobite. 



178 
FAUSTUS ON THE VANITY OF HIS STUDIES 

Wilhelm Goethe 

ALAS ! I have explored 
Philosophy, and Law, and Medicine; 
And over deep Divinity have pored, 
Studying with ardent and laborious zeal ; 
And here I am at last, a very fool, 
By useless learning curst, 
No wiser than at first! 

Here am I — boast and wonder of the school: 
Magister, Doctor, and I lead 
These ten years past, my pupils' creed; 
Winding, by dexterous words, with ease, 
Their opinions as I please. 
And now to feel that nothing can be known ! 
This is the thought that burns into my heart. 
I have been more acute than all these triflers, 
Doctors and authors, priests, philosophers; 
Have sounded all the depths of every science. 
Scruples, or the perplexity of doubt, 
Torment me not, nor fears of hell or devil. 
But I have lost all peace of mind: 
Whate'er I knew, or thought I knew, 
Seems now unmeaning or untrue. 
The fancy too has died away, 
The hope, that I might, in my day, 
Instruct and elevate mankind. 
Therefore to magic, with severe 
And patient toil, have I applied, 
Despairing of all other guide, 
That from some Spirit I might hear 
Deep truths, to others unrevealed, 
And mysteries from mankind sealed; 
Thus end at once this vexing fever 
Of words — mere words — repeated ever. 

From the translation of Faust by John Anster. Frederick A. Stokes Company. 



179 

WAMBA AND CEDRIC 

Thomas Dibdin 

WAMBA. {Enter I.) Well, Coeur de Lion's lost, on his way 
from Palestine; and what the better or worse am I for that? 
Reign who will, my royalty is in my motley coat, and my undisputed 
style and title is Wamba, the son of Witless, chief fool to the potent 
Baron Cedric, of Rotherwood, who glories in his Saxon origin, and 
hates the new-come Norman race, and is, as times go, a very good 
kind of an ill-natured, tolerably tolerable sort of a feudal chieftain. 
Here comes my fellow-servant, Gurth, the swine-keeper. He thanks 
fortune he's no fool; and I am grateful I don't keep pigs. {Enter 
Gurth.) You're ever the most unlucky varlet I have met with. Nay, 
even now thou wilt get the heavy collar round thy neck, for not 
littering the piggery earlier. Here comes our master, Cedric. But 
don't be afraid; the privilege of my folly must try to bring off thy 
stupidity. 

Cedric. {Enter r.) How comes it, villains, ye have loitered thus? 
{To Gurth.) Hast thou brought home thy charge, sirrah; or left 
them to outlaws and marauders? 

Wamba. The herd is safe, so please ye. 

Cedric. It does not please me thus late. Shackles and the prison- 
house shall punish the next offence. 

Wamba. Uncle Cedric, you and I must change coats, to-night. 
Thou are not wise. Why should you shackle poor Gurth for the 
fault of his dog, who flatly refused to bring up the pigs till it suited 
his own convenience? 

Cedric. Then hang up the dog. 

Wamba. That were unwise again; for the dog is lame. The chase 
keeper of your neighbor, Sir Philip de Malvoisin, has cut off his 
foreclaw. 

Cedric. The foul fiend take Malvoisin and his keeper, both! 
The curse of a coward on my head, if I mar not his archery. I'll 
strike off the fore-finger of his right-hand. He shall no more draw 
bowstring. Hence with ye! 

Adapted from a dramatization of Sir Walter Scott's novel. 



180 

MOSES AT THE FAIR 

Tom Taylor 

MOSES. A customer for the colt; he seems a simple fellow. I 
have a horse to sell, sir. 

Jenkinson. Oh ! but I warrant me you are one of those cozening 
horse jockies that take in poor honest folk. I know no more of horses 
than you do of Greek. 

Moses. Nay, I assure you, sir, that you need not fear being cozened 
by me. I have a good stout colt for sale, that has been worked in the 
plough these two years; you can but step aside and look at him. 

Jen. Well, I don't care if I do look at thy horse — But you're sure 
he's quiet to ride and drive? 

Moses. I've driven him myself, and I am not one that driveth 
furiously. 

Jen. Then, I don't care if I say a bargain. How much is it to be? 
I don't like paying more than ten guineas. 

Moses. You shall name your own price; (aside) and then nobody 
can say I cheated him. 

Jen. What say you to nine guineas, and the odd half-guineas for 
the saddle and bridle? 

Moses. Nay, I would not drive a hard bargain ; I'm content. 

Jen. Stop a bit, and I'll give the money. Eh? — oh, Lord! nay, 'tis 
t'other pocket; no — oh, Lord! I'm a ruined man — I be robbed — 
thieves! I be robbed — 

Moses. Robbed? This comes of carrying money. But I will lend 
thee enough to take thee home again. 

Jen. Hold! — perhaps, though I can no longer buy, you may be 
willing to make a barter? Will you exchange your horse for my wares? 
There's a good twelve pounds worth of 'em: — a gross of green spec- 
tacles, fine pebbles, and silver rims. 

Moses. Let's see; (Aside.) yes, a capital bargain! I accept; you 
take the colt, and I'll take the spectacles. (Aside.) A gross of green 
spectacles! I'll retail them for twice the money. The silly fellow! 
Well, it's not my fault, he will cheat himself. 

Adapted from The Vicar of Wakefield, a dramatization of Goldsmith's novel. 



181 



MOSES' RETURN FROM THE FAIR 

Tom Taylor 

DOCTOR PRIMROSE. Welcome, Moses, welcome! Well, my 
boy, what have you brought us from the fair? 

Moses. First and foremost, I have brought you myself. 

Dr. P. But the colt, my boy, the colt? 

Moses. I've sold him, father, and pretty well, I flatter myself. 
I've sold him, saddle, bridle, and all, for ten guineas. 

Dr. P. A great price, I protest — ten guineas! Well, done, in- 
deed — the money, boy, the money? 

Moses. Why, sir, I've brought back no money. 

Dr. P. Ah! a draft, doubtless. 

Moses. No; but I've got a great bargain. 

Dr. P. Good lad! but what is this bargain? Let's see! 

Moses. (Opening box, triumphantly.) A gross of green spectacles, 
with silver rims and shagreen cases. 

Dr. P. A gross of green spectacles! and you have parted with the 
colt, and brought us nothing but a gross of paltry green spectacles. 

Moses. Dear father, why won't you listen to reason? I got them 
at a dead bargain, I can tell you. The silver rims alone would sell 
for twice the money. 

Dr. P. (Examining them.) The rims, my dear! They're only cop- 
per varnished over, and not worth sixpence. 

Moses. Not silver? 

Dr. P. No more silver than a saucepan. 

Moses. Give me the trash; I'll throw it into the fire. 

Dr. P. There again, you are wrong, my boy, for though they are 
copper, we will keep them by us, for copper spectacles, you know, are 
better than nothing. Ah, Moses, Moses, youth-like, thou hast trusted 
to appearances! I expected this. 



Adapted from The Vicar of Wakefield, a dramatization of Goldsmith's novel. 



182 

THE PROPHECY 

Mary Russell Mitford 

WHAT! didst thou never hear 
Of the old prediction that was verified 
When I became the Doge? .... 
Some seventy years ago — it seems to me 
As fresh as yesterday — being then a lad 
No higher than thy hand, idle as an heir, 
I flew a kite, unmatched in shape or size, 
Over the river — we were at our house 
Upon the Brenta then; it soared aloft, 
Soared buoyantly, till the diminished toy 
Grew smaller than the falcon when she stoops 
To dart upon her prey. I sent for cord, 
Servant upon servant hurrying, till the kite 
Shrank to the size of a beetle : still I called 
For cord, and sent to summon father, mother, 
My little sisters, my old halting nurse, — 
I would have had the whole world to survey 
Me and my wondrous kite. It still soared on, 
And I stood bending back in ecstacy, 
My eyes on that small point, clapping my hands, 
And shouting, and half envying it the flight 
That made it a companion of the stars, 
When close beside me a deep voice exclaimed, 
"Aye, mount! mount! mount!" I started back, and saw 
A tall and aged woman, one of the wild 
Peculiar people whom wild Hungary sends 
Roving, through every land. She drew her cloak 
About her, turned her black eyes up to Heaven, 
And thus pursued: "Aye, like his fortunes, mount, 
The future Doge of Venice!" And before, 
For very wonder, any one could speak, 
She disappeared. I never saw her more. 

From Foscari. 



183 

RIENZI TO THE ROMANS 

Mary Russell Mittord 

I COME not here to talk. You know too well 
The story of our thralldom. We are slaves! 
. . . Slaves to a horde 
Of petty tyrants, feudal despots, lords, . . . 
Strong in some hundred spearmen; only great 
In that strange spell, — a name ! 

Each hour dark fraud, 
Or open rapine, or protected murder, 
Cries out against them. But this very day, 
An honest man, my neighbor, — there he stands, — 
Was struck — struck like a dog, but one who wore 
The badge of Ursini ! because, forsooth, 
He tossed not high his ready cap in air, 
Nor lifted up his voice in servile shouts, 
At sight of that great ruffian ! Be we men, 
And suffer such dishonor? Men, and wash not 
The stain away in blood? Such stains are common. 
I have known deeper wrongs. I that speak to ye, 
I had a brother once — a gracious boy, 
Full Of all gentleness, of calmest hope, 
Of sweet and quiet joy; . . . How I loved 
That gracious boy! Younger by fifteen years, 
Brother at once and son ! ... In one short hour 
That pretty, harmless boy was slain! .... 
Yet this is Rome 
That sat on her seven hills, and from her throne 
Of beauty ruled the world ! And we are Romans. 
Why in that elder day, to be a Roman 
Was greater than a king ! And once again, — 
Hear me, ye walls that echoed to the tread 
Of either Brutus! — once again, I swear 
The eternal city shall be free. 

From Rienzi. 



184 



SIMON INGOT ON SHAKESPEARE 

T. W. Robertson 

MY daughter Ada, about a year ago, went on a visit to her aunt, 
and one night that unfortunate woman, that unhappy old 
lady, took her to Drury Lane Theatre. She came home raving about 
one Romeo and Othello, and Mr. Macbeth, and a whole pack of people 
of whom I know nothing, and want to know less. {Picking up volume 
from table.) "The Works of William Shakespeare!" Confound the 
works of William Shakespeare say I! I wish they had never been 
invented. Why, the name of Shakespeare can never be mentioned 
without there being a row. One fool says he means one thing, and 
another fool says he means another. For my part, I don't think he 
means anything. Nobody can understand poetry. It's such non- 
sense — yes, nonsense. I'll prove it by the very first words I put 
my finger on. {Lighting upon the abbreviation for "Friar Lawrence.") 
Ha! I thought so. "F-r-i" and a full stop! Now what does "F-r-i" 
and a full stop mean? Why, the fellow can't even spell. If he meant 
"F-r-y!" why doesn't he put it so? Now what comes next? "I'll 
give thee armour to keep off that word!" Now, I'll put it to your 
stock of common sense, how can armour keep off words? Didn't the 
man in armour on Lord Mayor's Day hear the little boys shouting 
out "Saucepans," after him? . . . "Adversity's sweet milk." Now 
how can adversity be sweet milk? If it gets skim milk, it ought to 
think itself well off . . . . What's this? "Philosophy." Worse and 
worse. Now he says philosophy is sweet milk. He might as well say 
sour butter! 



Adapted from David Garrick. 



185 
PECKSNIFF TO HIS DAUGHTERS 

Charles Dickens 

YES, my dears, even the worldly goods of which we have just dis- 
posed, even cream, sugar, tea, toast, ham and eggs, even they have 
their moral. See how they come and go ! Every pleasure is transitory. 
We can't even eat, long. If we indulge in harmless fluids, we get the 
dropsy; if in exciting liquids, we get drunk. What a soothing reflec- 
tion is that! — Well, I have again been fortunate in the attainment of 
my object. A new inmate will very shortly come among us — a 
youth. He will avail himself of the eligible opportunity which now 
offers, for uniting the best practical architectural education with the 
comforts of a home with some who are not unmindful of their moral 
responsibilities. With him I do not positively expect any immediate 
premium. But what of that! If our inclinations are but good, let us 
gratify them boldly, even though they bring us loss instead of profit. 
And now for news of our cousin, old Martin Chuzzlewit: re- 
member that he is ill, and that blood is thicker than water. The 
whole family — male and female, near, distant, and slightly 
removed ■ — are swooping down like vultures upon a body. And 
my dears, I regret to say that our wealthy but misguided relative, 
instead of disposing himself to listen to the prompting of nature, 
is still deceived by the voice of the — the — the fabulous animals 
(Pagan animals, I regret to say), who used to sing in the water. — 
No, not swans, yet very like swans, too. — No, nor oysters, but 
by no means unlike oysters. — Wait! I have it — sirens; dear me, 
not oysters, nor swans, but sirens, sirens, of course. Yes, our 
misguided relative still listens to the voice of the siren. I met two of 
these — ahem! — relatives just as I was leaving the bar-parlour: 
our cousin Anthony and his son. On my observing that I felt it my 
Christian duty to inquire after old Mr. Chuzzlewit's health, he told 
me not to be a hypocrite — a hypocrite, my dears ! Charity, when I 
take my chamber candle- stick to-night, remind me to be more than 
usually particular in praying for Mr. Anthony Chuzzlewit, who has 
done me an injustice. 

Arranged from Tom Pinch, a comedy adapted by J. J. Dilley and L. Clifton 
from Dickens's novel of Martin Chuzzlewit. 



186 

JOHN WESTLOCKS PARTING WITH PECKSNIFF 

Charles Dickens 

JOHN. Come, Mr. Pecksniff, don't let there be any ill-blood be- 
tween us, pray. You'll bear me no ill-will at parting, sir? 

Peck. I bear no ill-will to any man on earth. 

John. {Looking at Tom Pinch, as though asking him to attend.) Then 
you will shake hands, sir? 

Peck. {Smiling very benignly.) I beg your pardon. 

John. Then you will shake hands? 

Peck. {Quite calmly.) No, John, I will not shake hands. I have for- 
given you. I have embraced you in spirit, John, which is better than 
shaking hands. You cannot move me to remember any wrong you 
have ever done me, John. 

John. Wrong! Here's a pretty fellow! Wrong I have done him! 
He'll not even remember the five hundred pounds he had with me 
under false pretences, or the seventy pounds a year for board and lodg- 
ing that would have been dear at seventeen pounds. Here's a martyr! 

Peck. Money, John, is the root of all evil! I grieve to see that it is 
already bearing evil fruit in you. But I have forgiven you — and I 
forgive also that misguided person {Looking at Tom), who has 
brought you here to-night, seeking to disturb the heart repose of one 
who would have shed his dearest blood to serve him. {Raising his 
voice.) I beg that individual not to address me. He will truly oblige 
me by not uttering one word just now. In a very short space of time 
I shall have sufficient fortitude, I trust, to converse with him as if 
these events had not happened, but not now, not now. {Exit.) 

John. Bah! do you want any blood shed for you? Does he shed 
anything for you that you do want? Does he shed instruction for you, 
pocket-money for you? Oh, he's a famous fellow; he never scraped 
and clawed into his pouch all your poor grandmother's hard savings ; 
he never speculated and traded on her pride in you. Of course not — 
not he, Tom. But there's the coach and I must be off. Goodbye — 
no, both hands, Tom. 

Arranged from Tom Pinch, a comedy adapted by J. J. Dilley and L. Clifton 
from Dickens's novel, Martin Chuzzlewit. 



187 

SCROOGE AND HIS NEPHEW 

Charles Dickens 

NEPHEW. A merry Christmas, uncle! God bless you! 
Scrooge. Bah! humbug! Out upon merry Christmas! If I 
had my will, every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on 
his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a 
stake of holly through his heart. He should! 

Neph. Uncle! 

Scrooge. Nephew, keep Christmas time in your own way, and let 
me keep it in mine. 

Neph. Keep it! But you don't keep it! 

Scrooge. Let me leave it alone, then. Much good may it do you ! 
Much good it has ever done you! 

Neph. There are many things from which I might have derived 
good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, Christmas among 
the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, 
when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, 
pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the 
year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up 
hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were 
fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound 
on other journeys. 

Scrooge. You're quite a powerful speaker, sir; I wonder you don't 
go into Parliament. 

Neph. Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow. 

Scrooge. I'll see you hanged first. 

Neph. But why, uncle? Why? I want nothing from you; I ask 
nothing of you; why cannot we be friends? 

Scrooge. Good-afternoon ! 

Neph. I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. 
But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my 
Christmas humor to the last. So, a merry Christmas, uncle! And 
a happy New Year ! 

Adapted from A Christmas Carol. 



188 
A SCENE FROM DAVID COPPERFIELD 

Charles Dickens 

PEGGOTTY. Why! It's Mas'r Davy! Glad to see you, Mas'r 
Davy. Don't you mind Mawther Gummidge, Mas'r Davy; 
she's a thinkin' of the old 'un. She allers do be thinkin' of the old 'un 
when there's a storm a-comin' up, along of his havin' been drowned at 
sea. Well, now, I must go and light up accordin' to custom. . . . 
Theer we are ! Theer we are ! A-lighted up accordin' to custom. Now, 
Mas'r Davy, you're a-wonderin' what that little candle is for, ain't 
yer? Well, I'll tell yer. It's for my little Em'ly. You see, the path 
ain't o'er cheerful arter dark, so when I'm home here along the 
time that Little Em'ly comes home from her work, I allers lights the 
little candle and puts it in the winder, and Em'ly sees it and she 
says: "Theer's home," and likewise, "theer's Uncle." Theer! Now 
you're laughin' at me, Mas'r Davy! You're a sayin' as how I'm a 
babby. Well, I don't know but I am. A babby in the form of a Sea 
Porkypine. — See the candle sparkle! I can hear it say — "Em'ly's 
lookin' at me! Little Em'ly's comin'!" Right I am for she is! (He 
goes to the door and Ham staggers in.) 

Ham. She's gone! Runaway! And think how! Read that wri tin' ! 

Peggotty. Em'ly gone! I '11 not believe it! No! I won't read that 
writin' — read it you, Mas'r Davy. Slow please. I don't know as I 
can understand. 

David. (Reads.) " When you see this, I shall be far away." 

Peggotty. Stop theer, Mas'r Davy! Stop theer! Fur away! 
My Little Em'ly fur away. Well? 

David. (Reads.) "Never to come back unless he bring me back a 
lady. Don't remember, Ham, that we were to be married, but try 
to think of me as if I had died long ago. My last tears for Uncle." 

Peggotty. Who's the man? What's his name? 

Ham. His name is Steerforth, and he's a cursed villain. 

David. Where are you going, Mr. Peggotty? 

Peggotty. I'm a goin' to seek my little Em'ly — to seek fur my 
little Em'ly throughout the wide wurreld! 

Adapted from the arrangement in the Practice Book of the Leland Powers 
School. 



189 
THE MICAWBERS IN A CRISIS 

Charles Dickens 

Introduction: The scene is in the lodgings of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. The 
former is out looking for something to turn up, while Mrs. Micawber has been 
annoyed all the morning by the calls of creditors. 

MRS. MICAWBER. Well, I wonder how many more times they 
will be calling! However, it's their fault. If Mr. Micawber's 
creditors won't give him time, they must take the consequences. 
Oh! there is some one knocking now! I believe it's Mr. Heep's knock. 
It is Mr. Heep — Come in, Mr. Heep. We are very glad to see you. 
Come right in. Mr. Micawber has gone out. We make no stranger 
of you, Mr. Heep; so I don't mind telling you Mr. Micawber's affairs 
have reached a crisis. With the exception of a heel of Dutch cheese, 
which is not adapted to the needs of a young family, — and including 
the twins, — there is nothing to eat in the house. (At this moment 
there is a noise heard on the landing. Micawber himself rushes into 
the room, slamming the door.) 

Micawber. (Not seeing Heep.) The clouds have gathered; the 
storm has broken; and the thunderbolt has fallen on the devoted 
head of Wilkins Micawber! Emma, my dear, the die is cast. All 
is over. Leave me in my misery! 

Mrs. Mic. I'll never desert my Micawber! 

Mic. In the words of the immortal Plato, "It must be so, Cato!" 
But no man is without a friend when he is possessed of courage and 
shaving materials ! Emma, my love, fetch me my razors ! (Recovering 
himself.) Sh-sh! We are not alone! Oh, Mr. Heep! Delighted 
to see you, my young friend! Ah, my dear young attorney-general, 
in prospective, if I had only known you when my troubles com- 
menced, my creditors would have been a great deal better managed 
than they were! You will pardon the momentary laceration of a 
wounded spirit, made sensitive by a recent collision with a minion of 
the law, — in short, with a ribald turncock attached to the water- 
works. Emma, my love, our supply of water has been cut off. Hope 
has sunk beneath the horizon ! Bring me a pint of laudanum ! 

Adapted from the arrangement in the Practice Book of the Lei and Powers 
School. 



190 

THE EAGLETS WOODEN SOLDIERS 

Edmond Rostand 

TO work, my friend. We will resume our tactics. 
First give me yonder box upon the couch, 
The wooden box with all my wooden soldiers. 
I'll work the problem much more easily 
Upon our little military chess-board. 
(I am surrounded with such loving care, 
They even paint my wooden soldiers Austrian!) 
Well, hand me one. We will deploy our left. — 
What is't? One of my father's grenadiers! 
A cuirassier! Light infantry! A scout! 
They're all become good Frenchman! Someone's painted 
Each of these little combatants ! 
They're French ! French ! French ! 
I tell you someone's carved and painted them! 

I know not how you worked, nor whence you came, 

How you found means, here, in our dismal gaol, 

To paint these little mannikins for me. 

Who is the hero, little wooden army — 

Only a hero would have been so childish — 

Who is the hero who equipped you thus 

That now you smile at me with all your trappings? 

Whose was the loving, microscopic brush 

Which gave each tiny face its grim moustache, 

Stamped cannon cross-wise on each pouch, and gave 

Each officer his bugle or grenade? 

Take them all out! They're little conquerors! 

Oh, Prokesch, look! locked in that little box 

Lay sleeping all the glorious Grand Armeel 

Oh, friend, whoe'er you are, with folded hands 

I thank you, nameless soldier of my father. 

Adapted from UAiglon, translated by Louis N. Parker. R. H. Russell (Harper 
and Brothers). 



191 

FLAMBEAU, THE VETERAN 

Edmond Rostand 

WHAT about us, who marched through every weather, 
Sweating but fearless, shivering without trembling, 
Kept on our feet by trumpet-calls, by fever, 
And by the songs we sang through conquered countries? 
Us, who wore bear skins in the burning tropics 
And marched bareheaded through the snows of Russia, 
Who trotted casually from Spain to Austria? 
Us, who to free our travel-weary legs 
Like carrots from the slough of miry roads, 
Often with both hands had to lug them out? 
Us, who, not having jujubes for our coughs, 
Took day-long foot-baths in the freezing Danube? 
Who just had leisure when some officer 
Came riding up, and gayly cried, "To arms! 
The enemy is on us ! Drive him back !" 
To eat a slice of rook — and raw at that — 
Don't you suppose we, too, were sick of it? 
I think I've acted like a decent beggar: 
Joined at fourteen, two Germinal, year Three; 
Baptised, Marengo; got my corporal's stripes 
The fifteenth Fructidor, year Twelve ; silk hose 
And sergeant's cane, steeped in my tears of joy, 
July fourteenth, year eighteen hundred and nine, 
At Schonbrunn, for the Guards were here to serve 
The sacred person of your Majesty; 
Sixteen years' service, seen sixteen campaigns, 
Thirty-two feats of arms, a lot of wounds, 
And only fought for glory and dry bread. 



Adapted from L'Aiglon, translated by Louis N. Parker. R. H. Russell (Harper 
and Brothers). 



192 

ULYSSES ON CALYPSO'S ISLE 

Stephen Phillips 

THIS odorous amorous isle of violets 
Palls on my heart. Ah, God ! that I might see 
Yon lashed and streaming rocks, and sobbing crags, 
The screaming gull and wild flying cloud: — 
To see far off the smoke of my own hearth, 
To smell far out the glebe of my own farms, 
To spring alive upon her precipices, 
And hurl the singing spear into the air; 
To scoop the mountain torrent in my hand, 
And plunge into the midnight of her pines; 
To look into the eyes of her who bore me, 
And clasp his knees who 'gat me in his joy, 
Prove if my son be like my dream of him. 
Comrades ! 

Great hearts, that with me have so long 
Breasted the wave and broken through the snare, 
Have we not eaten and drunk on magic shores? 
Heard all the Sirens singing and run free? 

Have we not burst 

Up from the white whirl of Charybdis' pool? 
Shall we put forth again upon the deep? 

Would ye see at last 
Gaunt Ithaca? 

Would ye behold 
The bright fires blaze and crackle on your hearths? 

Would you again catch up 
Your babes? 

And clasp again your wives? 
Then Zeus decrees that we again set forth 
And break at last the magic of this isle; 
And homeward will we sail to-night. 



Adapted from Ulysses. The Macmillan Company. 



193 

CHAUCER'S FAREWELL 

Percy MacKaye 

MY liege, may I have leave to tell you bluntly? 
Six years ago in London, when the mob 
Roared round your stirrups, Wat the Tyler laid 
His hand upon your bridle. "Sacrilege!" 
Cried the Lord Mayor, and Wat Tyler fell 

Dead Whereat you, your Majesty — 

God save you, a mere boy, a gallant boy — 
Cried out: "Good fellows, have you lost your captain? 
I am your King, and I will be your captain." 
Have you forgotten how they cheered? Then hark! 
Once more that "porkish rabble" you shall hear 
Make music sweeter than your laureate's odes. 
Pilgrims and friends, deep-hearted Englishmen, 
This is your King who called himself your captain. 

. My liege, my dear young liege, 
Are these the dull grunts of the swinish herd, 
Or are they singing hearts of Englishmen? 

Give me your hands, dear friends; and so farewell: 

All, all of you! Call me your vintner still, 

And I will brew you such a vintage as 

Not all the saps that mount to nature's sun 

Can match in April magic. They who drink it — 

Yes, though it be a thousand years, 

Shall wake, and see a vision, in their wine, 

Of Canterbury and our pilgrimage: 

These very faces, with the blood in them, 

These moving limbs, this rout, this majesty! 

For by that resurrection of the Muse, 

Shall you, sweet friends, re-met in timeless Spring, 

Pace on through time upon eternal lines 

And ride with Chaucer in his pilgrimage. 

Adapted from The Canterbury Pilgrims. The Macmillan Company. 



194 
THE OLD BOOK FROM THE THATCH 

William Butler Yeats 

FATHER HART. I never saw her read a book before; 
What may it be? 

Maurteen Bruin. I do not rightly know; 

It has been in the thatch for fifty years. 
My father told me my grandfather wrote it, 
Killed a red heifer and bound it with the hide. 
And little good he got out of the book, 
Because it Med his house with roaming bards, 
And roaming ballad-makers and the like. 
Colleen, what have you got there in the book 
That you must leave the bread to cool? Had I 
Or had my father read or written books, 
There were no stocking full of silver and gold 
To come, when I am dead, to Shawn and you. 
Persuade the colleen to put by the book : 
My grandfather would mutter just such things, 
And he was no judge of dog or horse, 
And any idle boy could blarney him : 
Just speak your mind. 

Father Hart. Put it away, my colleen. 

God spreads the heavens about us like great wings, 
And gives a little round of deeds and days, 
And then come the wrecked angels and set snares, 
And bait them with light hopes and heavy dreams, 
Until the heart is puffed with pride and goes, 
Half shuddering and half joyous, from God's peace: 
My colleen, I have seen other girls 
Restless and ill at ease, but years went by 
And they grew like their neighbours and were glad 
In minding children, working at the churn, 
And gossiping of weddings and of wakes : 
For life moves out of the red flare of dreams 
Into a common light of common hours, 
Until old age bring the red flare again. 

From The Land of Heart's Desire. Mosher. 



195 



THE MELTING-POT 

Israel Zangwill 



AMERICA is God's crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the 
races of Europe are melting and re-forming! Here you stand, 
good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand in 
your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty 
blood hatreds and rivalries. But you won't be long like that, brothers, 
for these are the fires of God you've come to — these are the fires of 
God. A fig for your feuds and vendettas ! Germans and Frenchmen, 
Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians — into the Crucible 
with you all! God is making the American. The real American has 
not yet arrived. He is only in the crucible, I tell you — he will be the 
fusion of all races, the coming superman. 

There she lies, the great Melting-Pot — listen! Can't you hear 
the roaring and the bubbling? There gapes the mouth — the harbour 
where a thousand mammoth feeders come from the ends of the 
world to pour in their human freight. Ah, what a stirring and a seeth- 
ing! Celt and Latin, Slav and Teuton, Greek and Syrian, black and 
yellow — Jew and Gentile — yes, East and West, and North and South, 
the palm and the pine, the pole and the equator, the crescent and the 
cross — how the great Alchemist melts and fuses them with his purging 
flame! Here shall they all unite to build the Republic of Man and the 
Kingdom of God. Ah, what is the glory of Rome and Jerusalem, where 
all nations and races came to worship and look back, compared with 
the glory of America, where all races and nations come to labor and 
look forward. Peace, peace to all ye unborn millions, fated to fill 
this great continent — the God of our children give you peace. 



Adapted from Mr. Zangwill's play of the same name. The Macmillan Com- 
pany. 



196 



AMERICA 

Israel Zangwill 

I LOVE going to Ellis Island to watch the ships coming in from 
Europe, and to think that all those weary, sea-tossed wanderers 
are feeling what / felt when America first stretched out her great 
mother-hand to met 

It was heaven . . . All my life I had heard of America — every- 
body in our town had friends there or was going there or got money 
orders from there. The earliest game I played at was selling off my 
toy furniture and setting up in America. All my life America was 
waiting, beckoning, shining — the place where God would wipe away 
the tears from off all faces. 

To think that the same great torch of liberty which threw its light 
across all the broad seas and lands into my little garret in Russia, 
is shining also for all those other weeping millions of Europe, shining 
wherever men hunger and are oppressed, shining over the starving 
villages of Italy and Ireland, over the swarming cities of Poland and 
Galicia, over the ruined farms of Roumania, over the shambles of 
Russia — Oh, when I look at our Statue of Liberty, I just seem to 
hear the voice of America crying, "Come unto me all ye that labour 
and are heavy laden and I will give you rest!" 



From The Melting Pot. The Macmillan Company. 



ELEMENTS OF ELOCUTION 



"And he spoke his piece with most applause, who best acted the 
passions of wrath and sorrow, with due respect to the dignity of the 
character.'" 

Saint Augustine. 



199 



ELEMENTS OF ELOCUTION 



LEARNING THE PIECE 

"To know when one's self is interested," says Walter Pater, "is 
the first condition of interesting others." Accordingly, if you have any 
choice in the matter, select for your declamation some piece that you 
are certain that you like. Then, read it through very carefully to see 
if there is any word of whose pronunciation you are not sure. If there 
is, immediately look it up. Next, without any effort to commit it to 
memory, read the piece through several times more, always commenc- 
ing at the beginning and going through to the end. The next day, 
read the piece through several times as you did on the day before; 
that is, always in its entirety and still without any conscious effort 
to learn it. About the third day, see if your eye will not at a glance 
take in whole groups of words, and if after a reading or two, you 
cannot repeat whole sentences. From now on, you should try more 
and more to get along without the book. By this method, though 
spending no more than a few minutes each day, you will probably 
find at the end of a week that you have the words fairly well in mind. 

This, however, is mere verbal memorization, the kind that is liable 
to fail utterly if a single link in the chain of words gives way. While 
such a process of committing is going on, you should use your imag- 
ination and your observation: your imagination to bring before 
your mind's eye the pictures your author presents; your observa- 
tion to note his rhetorical structure, and the order of his thoughts. 
In such a passage as the account of the duel between the Master of 
Ballantrae and his brother (page 79), for instance, picture to your- 
self all the recorded movements in the drama of that fatal night. 
Then the following words will become the natural expression of your 
own thoughts: 

"Mr. Henry took and kept the upper hand from the engagement, 
crowding in upon his foe with a contained and growing fury. Nearer 
and nearer he crept upon the man, till of a sudden, the Master leaped 
back with a little sobbing oath; and I believe the movement brought 



200 

the light once more against his eyes. To it they went again, on the 
fresh ground; but now methought closer, Mr. Henry pressing more 
outrageously, the Master beyond doubt, with shaken confidence. 
For it is beyond doubt he now recognized himself for lost, and had 
some taste of the cold agony of fear; or he had never attempted 
the foul stroke. I cannot say I followed it; my untrained eye was 
never quick enough to seize details, but it appears he caught his 
brother's blade with his left hand, a practice not permitted. Cer- 
tainly Mr. Henry only saved himself by leaping on one side; as 
certainly the Master lunging in the air stumbled on his knee, and 
before he could move, the sword was through his body."* 

In the following passage taken from the selection regarding the 
exploits of American naval heroes (page 41) note, first, that there 
is a series of interrogative sentences followed, in each case, by an 
answer, "It was the American sailor," which, in each case, is in 
turn followed by a sentence beginning with "And the name (or 
names) of . . . . ; " and, second, that the events are recounted in 
historical order. 

"Who, in the darkest days of our Revolution, carried your flag 
into the very chops of the British Channel, bearded the lion in his 
den, and woke the echoes of old Albion's hills by the thunders of 
his cannon, and the shouts of his triumph? It was the American 
sailor. And the names of John Paul Jones, and the Bon Homme 
Richard, will go down the annals of time for ever. Who struck the 
first blow that humbled the Barbary flag? It was the American 
sailor. And the name of Decatur and his gallant companions will 
be as lasting as monumental brass. In your war of 181 2, when your 
arms on shore were covered by disaster, who first relit the fires of 
national glory, and made the welkin ring with the shouts of victory? 
It was the American sailor. And the names of Hull and the Consti- 
tution will be remembered as long as we have left anything worth 
remembering." 

After you have the piece fairly well in mind, you may discover 
that some particular expressions are forever eluding you. This 
difficulty you can master by various devices. One is to stare long 

*The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson. Charles Scribner's Sons. 



201 

and thoughtfully at the words, fixing in mind just what they look 
like. Later, the very letters will rise before your mind's eye. To 
make the impression more vivid, write the words in large letters 
with colored ink or crayon. 

You must not think, however, that the ability to say the words 
correctly in your own room is positive evidence that you know them 
well enough to recite them in class. There you will find conditions so 
different that you cannot so easily keep your attention on your piece. 
For instance, you will find yourself thinking about how odd you feel 
upon the platform, how strangely your voice sounds in the larger 
room, or how your classmates or your teacher like your manner of 
speaking. Then, with division of attention, memory will tend to fail. 

The only way to be at all sure of avoiding such a lapse is to spend 
a second week in becoming so familiar with the words that they come 
to mind almost mechanically. Both as a test of this familiarity and 
as a proof against lapse of memory due to division of attention, ac- 
custom yourself to saying your piece when you are busied about other 
matters. 

To this method, Clara Morris attributes her promotion over two 
of her early associates, for, says she: 

"There was no luck about it When they studied their 

parts, they were contented if they could repeat their fines perfectly 
in the quiet of their rooms, and made no allowance for possible acci- 
dents or annoyances with power to confuse the mind and so cause 
loss of memory and ensuing shame. But I would not trust even my 
own memory without first taking every possible precaution. There- 
fore the repeating of my lines correctly in my room was but the be- 
ginning of my study of them. In crossing the crowded street I sud- 
denly demanded of myself my lines. At the table, when all were 
chatting, I again made sudden demand for the same. If on either 
occasion my heart gave a jump and my memory failed to present 
the exact word, I knew I was not yet perfect, and I would repeat 
those lines until, had the very roof blown off the theatre at night, 
I should not have missed one." 



202 
PLATFORM DECORUM 

Come to your position on the platform slowly. Then, before making 
your preliminary bow, sweep in at a glance the body of your audience. 
So great is one's range of vision that you can do this without turning 
your head. Next, with stiffened knees, heels together, and eyes 
upon the center of the last row in the hall, draw back the knees in 
such fashion as to compel the body to curve slightly, crescent- wise, 
bringing the head in a line over the instep. 

While speaking your piece, you should stand sturdily; that is, with 
both knees still stiff. This will bring you to your full height, and has 
a tendency to give you a better carriage generally. This position will 
also react on your speaking, giving your voice a firmer quality than 
when you stand in a more relaxed position with one knee loose. 

The heels, however, which were together as you bowed, should 
before you begin speaking be separated. This may be done by either 
a backward or a sideways step. But there should be but a single 
movement and the distance between the heels should be slight. 

Your hands may give you some uneasiness. Of course it is very 
natural for one of them to escape into a trousers pocket. But this 
will not do in formal work. Neither will it be well to hide them by 
clasping them both behind your back. This position, if the arms are 
tense, is awkward; and if they are relaxed, ineffective. The putting 
one hand behind is not so objectionable. The best rule, however, is 
to let them hang loosely at the sides. 

At the close of the selection, bow in the same manner as pre-' 
ceding your performance, except that when the piece closes in reverie 
or in an apostrophe to absent persons or things, you should not again 
look at the audience; but after dwelling on the last words and after 
a considerable pause, during which you should try not to relax the 
face or body, make your bow slowly, with your mind as it were, still 
on the last thought uttered. 



203 
BREATHING 

You can't get a note from a penny whistle without blowing. No 
more can you get voice without breathing. But just as the small boy 
with the whistle pipes quite merrily without thought of the blowing, 
so nature provides that under ordinary conditions you shall breathe 
without thinking. Public speaking, however, furnishes conditions that 
are not ordinary. The result is that your heart beats faster and your 
breath is shorter. But it is in public speaking that you need breath 
the most. Accordingly, if you go on long enough without furnishing 
an adequate supply, you will get a warning: a feeling in your throat 
of dryness and soreness, or a sound of huskiness. Then, it is, that you 
should become conscious of your breathing, and for the next few 
moments every time you can find a chance to do so, you should 
"draw the breath into the stomach," a direction which according 
to Professor Winter of Harvard in his Public Speaking, (Mac- 
millan) "an eminent teacher of singing gives his pupils," and which, 
Professor Winter adds, "probably suggests the sensation." But, of 
course, you can't go on long thinking both about what you are say- 
ing and about how you are breathing, too. 

As regards a definite system for the latter, though your instructor 
may teach you something of the sort for use when practising your 
vocal exercises, you should not be troubled if you cannot remember 
to employ it consciously in public. Indeed Mr. Franklin Taylor in 
his Psychology of Singing (Macmillan) states: "It has never been 
scientifically proved that the correct use of the voice depends in any 
way on the mastery of an acquired system of breathing. 

"No doubt the acquirement of healthy habits of breathing is of 
great benefit to the general health. But this does not prove that 
correct singing" — and may we not say speaking? — "demands some 
kind of breathing inherently different from ordinary life." 

After all, the main thing to remember is that you should commence 
speaking with a good supply of air and that you must not go on 
trying to manufacture voice without supplying the raw material. 



204 
SPEAKING CLEARLY 

To speak clearly you must do two things. In the first place, you 
must listen to yourself and to others. "Just as in writing," says 
Mr. Franklin Taylor, "the hand is guided by the eye, so in singing" 
(and we will add, in speaking) "the voice is guided by the ear." In 
similar vein, writes Madam Doria: "The only way of knowing whether 
the mechanism (that is, the action of the vocal apparatus) is good 
or bad is through the effect of the sound when it reaches the ear." 
You must, therefore, train yourself to recognize when words are 
correctly and when incorrectly sounded. You must, for example, be 
able to distinguish between ax and acts, prophet and profit, exceed, 
accede, our and are. 

In the second place, you must use with great freedom of action 
the lips, the tongue, and the teeth. "The great thing," writes Sir 
Johnston Forbes-Robertson, "is to have the sound come from the 
front of the mouth." "Speak the speech," enjoins Hamlet, "trip- 
lingly on the tongue." "He always insisted," writes Sir Henry 
Irving of the father of Edwin Booth, "upon a thorough use of the 
'instruments,' — by which he meant the teeth — in the formation 
of words." Thus an actor skilled in training college students for 
amateur theatricals is wont to cry out to the inarticulate, "Lips, 
tongue, teeth!" 

It is, however, a mistake to fancy that you can master the art of 
speaking clearly by practising simply difficult consonant combina- 
tions, such as ts's, Id's, and nd's. Vowels are quite as likely to be 
blurred and changed until hardly recognizable, or entirely elided even 
to the omission of a syllable. "All teachers of singing," writes Pro- 
fessor Winter, "train voices, at first, on the vowel, and it should be 
known that without right vowel, or tone, production, efforts at artic- 
ulation are futile." But this matter of vowel or tone production 
cannot be taught the novice by printed words. It is, therefore, left 
to your instructor to teach viva voce. 



205 
EXERCISES IN ARTICULATION 

To be repeated by the class in concert after the teacher. 
EXERCISE I 

WORDS OF SOMEWHAT SIMILAR SOUND 

Practise in groups of two, reading across the page, being careful not to change 
the accent of any word to distinguish it from the one often pronounced similarly. 

Accede, Exceed. Accepts, Excepts. Ax, Acts. 

Council, Counsel. Console, Consul. Profit, Prophet. 





EXERCISE II 






FESTAL CONSONANTS 




Read in groups of three. 


Attention to rhyme and rhythm will 

FINAL TS 


give zest. 


Acts 

Fists 
Boasts 


Facts 
Lists 

Coasts 

FINAL ND 


Tracts 

Mists 

Hosts 


Bound 
Hound 


Found 
Sound 

FINAL ING 


Ground 
Wound 


Clinging 

Being 

Flowing 


Flinging 

Seeing 

Growing 

FINAL NDS 


Ringing 
Fleeing 
Rowing 


Bounds 
Mounds 


Grounds 
Sounds 

FINAL LD 


Hounds 
Wounds 


Bold 
Gold 


Cold 
Hold 


Fold 
Told 



206 

EXERCISE in 

WORDS OF WHICH ONE SYLLABLE IS OFTEN, INCORRECTLY, ELIDED 

Ablative Cemetery General 

Government History Interested 

Library Literature Military 

EXERCISE IV 

WORDS WHOSE VOWELS OR DIPHTHONGS ARE OFTEN INCORRECTLY GIVEN 

In the words of the first group, the sound of au should be the same as in aunt. 
Accordingly, start with the latter word and keep the same sound of au throughout 
the remaining words. 

Aunt, haunt, taunt. Launch, haunch, staunch. 

The sound of u in duty should be like that of eau in beauty; that of ew in new 
like that of ew in few; the u in duke, like that in rebuke. Here, as before, start with 
the word of which you are sure; then, omitting the opening consonant, give the rest 
of the word; finally, prefix the consonant of the troublesome words. 

Beauty, (b) eauty, duty. Few, (f) ew, new. 

Rebuke, (b) uke, Luke, duke. Mew, (m) ew, stew, dew. 

The word our is often pronounced almost as if it were are, but the sound 
should be the same as hour. 

Hour, our. Is this our hour? This hour is our hour. 



Apparatus 

Data 

Hearth 

Italic 

Memoir 

Prelude 

Raillery 

Satire 

Sinecure 

Tomato 



EXERCISE V 




EL SOUNDS ARE OFTEN 


INCORRECTLY GIVEN 


Bronchitis 


Civilization 


Extraordinary 


Gratis 


Heinous 


Inquiry 


Jocund 


Juvenile 


Parent 


Pianist 


Profile 


Quinine 


Rapine 


Recitative 


Satyr 


Simultaneous 


Squalor 


Synod 


Wound 


Visor 



207 
PRONUNCIATION 

Of course articulation and pronunciation go together; that is, a 
word is not really pronounced correctly unless it is articulated cor- 
rectly; and a word of one syllable like acts when called ax is just as 
much mispronounced as is a word of several syllables like inexplicable 
when it is called inexplicable. Thus pronunciation involves all that 
articulation does — namely, a nice shaping of the separate sounds 
(vowels, diphthongs, consonants), that compose a word — and it takes 
in addition, in the case of words of more than one syllable, an accent. 

EXERCISE IN PRONUNCIATION 

(To be repeated by the class in concert, after the teacher.) 



Acclimate 


Hospitable 


Address 


Illustrate 


Aggrandizement 


Impious 


Alias 


Incomparable 


Chastisement 


Indisputable 


Conversant 


Inexorable 


Cursorily 


Indissoluble 


Deficit 


Inexplicable 


Despicable 


Inhospitable 


Discourse 


Inquiry 


Disputable 


Irrevocable 


Enervate 


Lamentable 


Environs 


Mischievous 


Exponent 


Miscontrue 


Exquisite 


Muncipal 


Extant 


Museum 


Formidable 


Precedence 


Grimace 


Precedent 


Harass 


Referable 


Horizon 


Vagary 



208 
PAUSING 

Pauses should be made at the natural divisions of thought. These 
are often indicated by punctuation marks. Of these the period — ex- 
cept when used to indicate abbreviation — and the semicolon will 
always call for a pause. But pauses do not so regularly occur where 
there is a comma. One of the rules for the use of the latter, for in- 
stance, demands that it set off every vocative; but there is no 
pause in the expression, "Good morning, sir." 

On the other hand, pauses often occur where there is no mark. 
Very frequently, for instance, there is a pause before a verb. Such a 
case occurs in the following sentence from "The English Lark," "And 
then the same sun that had warmed his little heart at home | came 
glowing down on him here." So, too, a pause, for the sake of emphasis, 
may be made before any expression, quite regardless of a lack of 
punctuation. This is effective in the last line of Cassius's appeal to 
Brutus: — 

Ye gods! it doth amaze me 
A man of such a feeble temper should 
So get the start of the majestic world 
And bear the palm | alone. 

Special pains must be taken with abstract terms, such words, for 
instance, as truth, justice, mercy. The reason for this will become clear 
if you will note for a moment how the mind works. At the sound of 
the words red flag, for example, you probably find that instantly you 
see in imagination the danger signal. Likewise the line, "When rock- 
ing winds were piping loud," brings to your ear the sound of the gale. 
But such words as truth, justice, mercy, produce but a vague image. 
Therefore, give your audience plenty of time to comprehend every 
expression of this nature. 

As a general rule, pauses may be made before conjunctions, prep- 
ositions, adverbs, verbs, and before any expression which it is desirable 
to emphasize. 



209 
WHERE TO LOOK 

Auditors are also spectators. Therefore, when you come to your 
place, their eyes are upon you. At that moment, beware of dropping 
yours. But where you shall look when you have begun to speak de- 
pends on the words. For example, the phrases, "They tell us, sir, that 
we are weak," and "Mr. Chairman, only one action is possible," are 
addressed to one spot, as to a single individual; while, "Four score 
and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a 
new nation," is to the whole assemblage. Where, as in dialogue, the 
speaker gives the words of more than one character, there must, as a 
rule, be a suggestion — at least — of speaking in the direction of each 
person addressed. In "The Victor of Marengo" (page 74), for exam- 
ple, if you fancy Desaix to be at the right of Napoleon, turn your head 
or look in that direction after you have said, "Napoleon turned to 
Desaix," and before you say, "We are beaten; what shall we do?" 
Similarly, you should look or turn toward the left before replying, 
"Do! Beat them I" It should be noted, however, that if you turn as 
much as you might in real life, you will turn your face away from 
practically half your audience; the position of the characters is, 
therefore, often only to be suggested. 

But of course in such works, or in anything that is of the nature of 
characterization, there will be, as in real life, side glances, ejacula- 
tions, and apostrophes, with eyes, as it were, on absent persons and 
things, and down-cast expressions, with eyes fixed on the floor; while 
in reveries, the eyes will be as seeing things invisible. 

In strictly dramatic pieces, the more serious characters must 
never seem conscious of the audience; though the comic and humor- 
ously eccentric characters frequently step out of the picture to take 
the audience into their confidence. As Charles Lamb put it : "Mac- 
beth must see the dagger, and no ear but his own be told of it; but 
an old fool in a farce may think he sees something, and by conscious 
words and looks express it, as plainly as he can speak, to pit, box, 
and gallery." 



210 
MAKING GESTURES 

"Suit the action to the word," says Hamlet. This injunction im- 
plies that certain movements express certain thoughts. For instance, 
a slow approach to your position on the platform and a deliberateness 
in making your bow form a mask or screen for your nervousness, and 
give the impression of self-control. Still slower movements may indi- 
cate sluggishness and reluctance. The whining schoolboy, for example, 
creeps like a snail to school. Such movements may also express 
weakness of body and depression of mind. Quick movements, on 
the other hand, express mental excitement. According to their rate, 
they show the different degrees of joy, anger, and enthusiasm, even 
to lack of self-control. 

But also there are certain attitudes expressive of certain states of 
mind. For instance, as every finger-post shows, the outstretched arm 
and pointer-finger indicate direction. Again, the uplifted hand with 
palm open away from the body repels and forbids; — forbids noise, 
for instance, and thus calls for silence. These and dozens of other 
attitudes and movements form the great sign language, read and 
known of all men, the spontaneous expression of one so filled with an 
idea that he cannot express himself in mere words. 

Indeed such a one cannot even wait for the words to come. Thus 
it was that the late Sir Henry Irving, complimenting Mr. Bram Stoker 
upon the latter's delivery of some poem, specified especially as praise- 
worthy, Mr. Stoker's letting his poses, gestures, and the expressions 
of his face precede the words which were to express the thought that 
these poses, gestures, and facial expressions foreshadowed. This was 
good art because it was true to nature. As an example, fancy yourself 
hurrying back to school from a walk along the countryside. Far off, 
the bell rings for class. Instantly, you are filled with dismay at the 
thought of being late. This feeling at once shows in a change of counte- 
nance. Then, you call to a lagging comrade, "There's the bell! We're 
late!" Analyzing this case, note that you first received an impression 
from without (the sound of the bell calling you to class); this gave 



211 

rise to a feeling (dismay at being late); the feeling expressed itself 
outwardly in two ways: first, in what corresponds to a gesture (the 
downcast face); then, in words (the call to the comrade). According- 
ly, when you make gestures, make them before the words whose 
thought they emphasize or clarify. 

A few other rules may be laid down. Remember, first, not to 
make gestures because you think they will look well. Rather let 
them be the outcome of the overflow of thought that cannot find 
adequate expression in words alone. Secondly, carry out fully the 
impulse to gesticulate. Mere flappings of the wrist are ineffective. 
Thirdly, as a rule, you should avoid carefully all glances in the direc- 
tion in which you make a gesture. This is especially true in narra- 
tions and descriptions. But you meet with exceptions; in such a 
piece as "The Black Horse and His Rider" (page 77), for instance, you 
seem to be actually in the same position as that of your audience, both 
you and they watching the ascent of the cliff . In such a passage as : 

"But this very day, 
An honest man, my neighbour, — there he stands, — " (page 183) 

you have first your eyes upon your audience — say the center of the 
hall; next, just before you say, "There he stands," you look a bit to 
the right or left, where you in fancy discover that neighbour; then 
before raising your hand with the remark, "There he stands," you 
look back to the center. 

Finally, practise your gestures so many times that you can make 
them without thinking. Otherwise, when you get before your au- 
dience, you are likely to be so occupied with the thought of the move- 
ment both before and after you have made it that your attention is 
divided and away may go your words, leaving you at a standstill. 



212 
INFLECTIONS 

One of the most interesting things about the speaking voice is its 
magical power of making the same words mean different things. For 
instance, in reply to Macbeth's question, "If we should fail?" Mrs. 
Siddons in her impersonations of Lady Macbeth gave, in the course 
of her career, three different renditions of the two-word sentence, 
"We fail." In the first place, there was an upward sweep of the voice, 
seeming to answer the Thane's question with another; namely, 
"Fail, did you say?" At another time in her life, she employed a 
downward movement, answering Macbeth with absolute finality, as 
who should say, "If we fail, we fail, and there's an end." At still a 
third stage, she used a bend of the voice on the word We, expressing 
scorn for his idea of their failing. 

It is by such subtle movements of the voice that Iago, without 
uttering one direct word of accusation, stirs Othello against Cassio: 

Othello. Is he not honest? 

Iago. Honest, my lord? 

Othello. Honest! ay, honest. 

Iago. My lord, for aught I know. 

Othello. What dost thou think? 

Iago. Think, my lord? 

Othello. Think, my lord! By heaven, he echoes me. 

These movements of the voice, which are quite as expressive of 
thought as any mere words, are known as inflections. The three 
principal inflections are : the Rising, the Falling, and the Circumflex. 

The Rising Inflection, an upward movement of the voice, prevails, 
as will be observed in the examples which follow, in direct questions. 

The Falling Inflection, a downward movement, expressive of com- 
pleteness, prevails at the close of direct statements. 

The Circumflex Inflection, a bending movement introduced into 
the rising or falling movement of the voice, so that it does not go 
directly up or down, is used in rhetorical questions (that is, in those 
questions which do not ask for information, but are really statements 
cast in interrogative form) and in expressions of scorn and mockery, 
ending generally with a rising movement in rhetorical questions, and 
with a falling movement in expressions of scorn and mockery. 



213 
EXERCISES IN INFLECTIONS 

(To be repeated by the class in concert after the teacher.) 

RISING INFLECTION 

Hath he asked for me? 

Darest thou now leap in with me? 

Who's there? 

Did'st thou not hear a noise? 

Will you to Scone? 

Dismayed not this 

Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo? 

How now, who comes? 

What, has this thing appeared again to-night? 

Be the players ready? 

Have you heard the argument? 

What, is Antonio here? 

Ride you this afternoon? 

Is't far you ride? 

Goes Fleance with you? 

Saw you the weird sisters? 

Came they not by you? 

We are beaten; what shall we do? 

Was it snowing I spoke of? 

Dost thou not hear? 

Did he receive you well? 

But you'll be secret? 

Is it a custom? 

And now, Laertes, what's the news? 



214 

FALLING INFLECTION 

Napoleon was sitting in his tent. Before him lay the map of Italy. 

It was the seventh of October, 1777. 

Suddenly Gates and his officers were startled. 

Thus it was all day long. 

I shall enter on no encomium on Massachusetts. She needs none. 

Plato, thou reasonest well. 

These heroes are dead. 

Their names reverberate from earth to heaven. 

To the Army of the Potomac belongs the unique distinction of being 
its own hero. 

Well, honor is the subject of my story. 

CIRCUMFLEX INFLECTION 

Napoleon turned to Desaix, "We are beaten; what shall we do?" 
"Do! Beat them." 

Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of 
chains and slavery? 

Will ye give it up to slaves? 

Will ye look for greener graves? 

Hope ye mercy still? 

Is the gentleman done? Is he completely done? 

Hath a dog money? Is it possible a cur can lend three thousand 
ducats? 

And what's his answer? I am a Jew. 

You lay a wreath on murder'd Lincoln's bier, 
You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace, 
Broad for the self-complaisant British sneer, 
His length of shambling limb, his furrow'd face? 



V 



